


Sometimes I Hate The Life I Made

by EmilieHardie



Series: Give Me A New Religion [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), BAMF Skye, Gen, Skye is Tony's daughter, Ultron feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 09:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 131,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3805150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilieHardie/pseuds/EmilieHardie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some families have black sheep. The Starks are all black sheep… even Skye.</p><p>Skye is a lot of things, but she has always thought that Tony Stark’s daughter is the least important of them all. She’s built herself an entire life away from her estranged Dad, and had fully intended to never see him again. Then boom: earthquake powers. Only a Stark, right?</p><p>But there’s a new Stark out there, a little brother that Skye never thought to have bent on the extinction of the human race. She may not like her Dad but that doesn’t mean that she is going to let his mistake destroy the world, even if it means going undercover as a supervillain called Quake.</p><p>Ultron won't know what hit him.</p><p>WARNING: takes place during Avengers 2 and contains UNMARKED SPOILERS. </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Never Be The Same

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the first story of Give Me A New Religion.
> 
> Brace yourselves, this is going to be a pretty big series. Currently I have three novel-length fics planned and I’m hoping to update every Sunday, Australian Time, so stay tuned. The planned series order is as follows:
> 
> 1\. Sometimes I Hate The Life I Made - [link to TvTropes page](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/SometimesIHateTheLifeIMade)  
> 2\. Ghost With No Soul  
> 3\. Before We Say Our Goodbyes
> 
> Since I am notorious unreliable when it comes to updates, the dates I am committed to getting the chapters out by will be in the end notes of the most recent chapter, and you have my full permission to bombard me with messages if I haven't updated in time.
> 
> Timeline and canon info can be found in the end notes of this chapter.

Skye had a brother.

She knew that no one else would think of Ultron that way, even if they had known the identity of Skye's dad. Other people, people not raised and screwed up by Tony Stark, did not consider machines and AIs to be siblings. Nor had Skye, really. JARVIS, much as she loved him, had been the echo of a dead man. The bots were sentient but only in the way animals were. There was no real awareness there.

No one could ever argue Ultron wasn't aware.

Skye had known the moment he had killed JARVIS because her steady stream of data from Avengers Tower had cut out abruptly. Her Dad would have found the idea of hacking JARVIS nauseating and there was no one else in the world - aside from her - who had the capability, so he never thought to check the AI's integrity.

Her tablet had alerted her immediately. It might have been awkward if she had been back at the Playground but she had spent the previous few weeks at Stark Ranch in Texas, taking advantage of the remote location to do some minor experimenting with her new power. It still freaked her out more than a little but she was beginning to get a handle on it. Unfortuately, getting away from the team to do so had meant that Skye had to reveal to Coulson just who her Dad was.

He had not been impressed. Her Dad would have been even less impressed if he had learned she worked for SHIELD.

Her Dad's low opinion, she didn't really care about. Neither of them pretended to get along anymore, and they had a strict 'only one Stark in a given state at any one time'. But she really was fond of Coulson and she hoped that she could find a way to get him to forgive her. Still, not being at the Playground meant that she could delve straight into the video footage her virus in JARVIS had dumped onto another server.

The moment she saw the three days world of Science! between her Dad and Dr Banner, Skye knew that it was going to end badly. There was literally no other option and if her Dad hadn't been so attached to his mad scientist label he would have realised that too. There was no way that uploading an alien consciousness to the Iron Legion was going to end with anything less than destruction.

That was how her Dad had made Skye a younger brother, even if it was largely unintentional and said brother's first act was to stop JARVIS and to try to kill the Avengers.

Ultron needed to be stopped, she got that, but Skye couldn't help the small spark of warmth in her chest. Here was family, family who only hated her Dad slightly more than she did. Here was another sentient failure by Tony Stark, another person who was forced to be shaped by those failures and to never be able to rid themselves of them no matter how much she might wish.

Yeah, Skye had plenty of sympathy for Ultron. She was still going to take him down, because lord knew her Dad wasn't capable of cleaning up his own messes.

Coulson answered on the second ring. "What's the matter Skye?"

"Tony Stark," she said, making it a curse. After twenty-six years of being raised by her irresponsible and self-centered Dad, it kind of was.

"You're going to have to be more specific," DC said over the scritching of a pen. The regular short bursts of the noise said that he was signing paperwork, which meant he could be lured away from SHIELD business by a suitably interesting distraction.

"He created a brand new AI and put it into the Iron Legion. It just tried to kill the Avengers."

The scratching of the pen stopped. "Skye, please tell me that you are not about to suggest getting involved."

"I'm about to suggest getting involved," she said without hesitation.

"Skye-"

"Hear me out, DC. I don't want to go fight it. I think that I can find some common ground with it, go in undercover as its ally." Skye really did think that she could pull it off. The moment she had heard it speak, heard the rhythm of its speech and the dramatics, she had felt the pull of family. Her gut said that, lack of genetics aside, Ultron was her brother. And she was willing to stake her life of him feeling the same.

"Common ground with an AI?" he said disbelievingly.

"Please, you've met JARVIS. Who, by the way, was killed by this new AI, Ultron." Though Skye didn't feel the attachment to JARVIS as an individual that her Dad did, she knew that Coulson had a small soft spot for the AI that had been willing to let him barge in on her Dad.

It hit a nerve because Coulson actually reacted, sucking in a breath. "All the more reason to stay away."

"I don't think that's going to be an option. He has JARVIS' files; he has to know about me and he wants to hurt Dad." There was a small pause in DC's breathing when she called Tony Stark her Dad, so she guessed he still wasn't quite used to it. Too bad. "I think, one way or another, he'll come to me. I would much rather beat him to the punch and be able to help than be dragged into the mess kicking and screaming."

"Come back to the Playground. SHIELD will protect you."

Skye laughed. Didn't he get that protecting the team was the reasons he had left in the first place? "I'm not going to get you guys involved. Besides, I'd rather not explain my parentage to the team."

"Better than getting caught in between the Avengers and a rogue... whatever."

"Look, DC, I get this guy. I get him in a way that no one else ever will, even if they bothered to think about it, because no one else has ever been Tony Stark's creation. I get the anger and the pain and the crushing need to live up to something that can't be lived up to. The moment I make contact, he'll take to me and I will be safer than anywhere else because I get it and he will value that."

"He?" Coulson asked mildly.

"He," she replied firmly. "Ultron."

"Skye," Coulson said gently. "Its an AI. Just some lines of code."

"No, JARVIS was just some lines of code. He could make jokes and he could mimic a personality but he was bound by those lines of code you were talking about. Ultron went beyond that mere minutes after he came into being. That meant trying to kill the Avengers, but he has a mind of his own. He deserves the he."

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment. Skye stayed quiet too, letting that sink in for Coulson. She loved him and knew he meant well but she could feel in her bones that she could make a difference, could help, and that she would be involved one way or another. She would much rather the choice be hers to make.

"It would have to be convincing," Coulson said after almost a minute. "I'm looking at the file now, and this is beyond dangerous Skye."

"He must know how I feel about my Dad," she said, unable to keep the bitter tone. "It will be convincing."

"The team here will have to react as though you've defected," he said bluntly. "They will need to think that you chose an omnicidal AI over them. Its not going to be pretty. Do you still want to do this?"

She hadn't thought about that. Hadn't thought about the fact that Ultron might be able to break SHIELD security, even though she had been the one to write most of that code, and might be able to see how the team was reacting. If they didn't act one hundred percent convinced that Skye had gone rogue, Ultron would know and it would all be for nothing. Fitz might not forgive her for that.

"Yes," she said quietly. "I'm not doing this on a lark. It genuinely needs to be done, DC. And I'm prepared to take the consequences."

"Alright. I will sort everything out from this end, tell them that you submitted your resignation. I suggest that you go out and do something spectacularly bad to ensure that the others believe it."

"I was planning to," she admitted. "I've been careful with my location and it could be difficult for Ultron to get to me where I am. Far better for me to put myself out in the open and make it easy for him to find me."

"I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"

"Maybe," said Skye.

"But then, you're not really asking for approval, are you? You're trying to be considerate while telling me that you will be doing this."

"You went out on a limb for me, DC, back when I was Rising Tide. It didn't feel right to just leave without telling you that I wasn't actually going bad."

"I would never think you went bad, Skye. I know that you are a good person and that you will do what's necessary to protect people. Even if that means pretending to help a rogue AI bent on killing the Avengers. But thank you for the consideration. It means a lot."

"You're welcome, DC. Now, consider my resignation given. So are you going to give me some advice on how to look authentically like a supervillain?"

There was a small chuckle from the other end. "Well, Ultron is going after the Avengers, right? So find out where they are and hinder them." There was a pause. "I just suggested going after the Avengers, didn't I?"

"Undercover ops," Skye said sagely. "They mess with your head."

"Don't let this one mess with yours too much," was all he said to that. He could have nagged, warned her, anything really but that was what made him so amazing. He had always seen her potential, even when others hadn't. She knew that she could do it, and he did too, so there was nothing more that needed to be said. He trusted that she would be careful.

"I won't," she promised.

"Oh, and Skye?" he waited a second to make sure that he had her attention. "Don't be overconfident, but I trust that you could give any of the Avengers a run of their money."

Skye's face heated and she ducked her head to hide it automatically, even though she was in Texas and he was at the Playground and they were talking on the phone. She knew he didn’t mean that she could take them in a straight fight - she didn’t have the experience for that - but that she could outthink them enough that she could hold her own in a fight. "Well, maybe not Captain America."

"Even Captain America," he said gently, and Skye's face was burning and her heart felt as though it was about to explode out of her chest. There was literally no higher praise or vote of confidence he could give her and it warmed her, would probably warm her for the rest of her life.

"Thanks... Phil."

 

///////////

 

Figuring out where the Avengers were likely to be didn't take much of Skye's incredible intelligence. She checked what Ultron had done in her Dad's system, found that he had erased Baron Von Strucker's file. It was a little bit obvious, almost bait, and she was ready to bet it wouldn't be long before her Dad found it too. Since Skye had a local backup of most recently accessed files, such as the ones the Avengers had read before going to Sorkovia, she didn't need to go digging any further.

She quickly scanned the file before running the known associates through SHIELD files, which Coulson had helpfully 'forgotten' to remove her access from after her 'resignation'. It was a matter of moments before Skye had the file of Ulysses Klaue, along with helpful highlights where SHIELD's algorithms had found unusual activity. Skye couldn't tell from the file what was going on, but she would bet good money that was where the Avengers would run into Ultron, which meant that she was going to have to get there as soon as possible.

As much as she disliked her Dad, and that was a lot, there were some facts that never changed about staying in one of the many properties that he owned. Chief among them was that, since New York, they all had some form of aerial transport so that Pepper could evacuate immediately should something go down. Skye had checked out the experimental plane the day she had arrived with uncontrollable earthquake powers.

It wasn't a quinjet but it would get her to South Africa. It would even fly there mostly on automatic and file its own flight plan with all relevant authorities. It would also try to send out a notification of its use to JARVIS, which would bounce back so, unless her Dad specifically took the time out of the Ultron crisis to check the log of the plane, he wouldn't know she had taken it until they ran into each other.

In short, everything was working worryingly well in her favour. Though working for SHIELD was starting to bring out some of her Dad's paranoia in her, she had a duffel bag of clothes and a few guns packed in a few minutes and was taking off less than ten minutes after ending her conversation with Coulson.

It was only once she was on the plane and flying towards South Africa that Skye even had time to think about what she was doing. She had told Coulson that it was necessary but sitting alone in a plane that was flying itself, the knowledge that she had officially-unofficially quit SHIELD, the organisation that she cared about more than anything, hit her.

She intended to go back, of course, but that relied on them being prepared to have her back. Coulson knew what was going on and he was the one calling the shots but that only mattered so long as she helped end the Ultron situation more than she hindered the efforts of the Avengers, and she was going to need to hinder them if she wanted to make her joining up with Ultron look legitimate.

She knew that she was putting her life on the line, pretending to take Ultron's side. If all she had been doing was pretending, she wouldn't have even suggested it because of the danger. But the moment she had heard his speech to the Avengers, she had felt his anger and his paranoia and his fury at that world not being what it should be to her bones. This was her brother, in all the ways but the one that didn't matter, and she knew where he was coming from and what he was feeling because she had felt it a hundred times before.

Skye was willing to admit that she had made mistakes in her early twenties, and the biggest of them was joining Rising Tide. She had wanted to do something that her Dad never had, to push back against the status quo that had always benefited her, and to feel as though she belonged somewhere.

That it had meant hurting SHIELD, the agency that her Dad consulted for and sometimes worked with, had been a serious bonus.

She got it, she really did, wanting to hurt Tony Stark so badly that it would mean bringing the world down too. She remembered all the times her Dad, unwilling to have it known that he had a daughter, had passed her off as a random kid wanting him to sign something. She remembered the time she had gone to the newly built Stark Tower a few days before the Battle of New York and, on her birthday, her Dad had gotten her out of the building by pretending that she was, as Ward had once put it, 'one of those sweaty cosplay girls'.

Her childhood had been happy-ish, all things considered. She hadn't spent nearly as much time with her Dad or Uncle Rhodey as she had wanted, the first because he wasn't cut out for children to put it politely and the second because he was often away on Army business. But then she had hit ten and the cracks in her life had started to become obvious.

By thirteen, she had realised how much her Dad had screwed her over, even if it had done it in different ways that her grandfather had done to him.

If Skye had been generous or understanding, she might have been able to ignore some of the everyday offenses. But years of being treated as an embarrassment, of being on the receiving end of her Dad's 'are you an idiot?' look even though she was twenty-seven years his junior and of her Dad making it more than clear that he didn't want her and didn't consider her important enough to change his irresponsible ways for had ground down that generosity and understanding.

Skye wasn't an orphan like she had told SHIELD at first. She hadn't been shuffled from home to home but that didn't mean that she didn't have abandonment and attachment issues anyway. She was broken too, even if it wasn't that way they thought. She tried to be someone other than what her Dad and Grandad were. She tried to be sociable and kind and to help others without expecting any gain. She didn't use her intellect to box others into doing what she wanted, and she even deluded herself into thinking that was because she didn't want to be them rather than the fact that the only person who would give her a challenge was her Dad.

Skye lied a lot, but most of her lies were to herself.

Normally, second thoughts wouldn't have been much of a problem since she was already committed. Unfortunately, her nerves were still more than a little raw from have to go to her Dad for help and she could feel the pressure beginning to build at the base of her skull that she had learnt signalled an uncontrollable earthquake was imminent. Back on the ranch, she had found that going out to the makeshift shooting range she had rigged up and imagining the targets were people that had pissed her off had dispersed it much of the time, but that was a little more difficult on a plane.

So she did what she could. She went over to the clearest area on the small plane and dropped down and began doing push up after push up, savouring the burn along her abdomen, the sharp sting on the undersides of the back of her should her shoulderblades. It helped a little to have pressure all over her back and spine, even if it come from a different source.

Being so close to the ground also gave her a different perspective on the shuddering and rumbling of the plane. It was a Stark design and the vibrations would have been imperceptible to anyone else but to Skye they were obvious, singing out to her every sense. She could see them and taste them on the air and hear them and even smell them a little. She felt each and every minute change in her gut and it felt amazing but it was also equally amazing that she wasn't catatonic from sensory overload.

She was at it for some time before she felt the pressure start to ease. By that point, she had long since lost count of the amount of push ups she had forced her body through, continuing to work through the pain because she really didn't want to know what would happen if she lost control and brought forth an earthquake when she was in mid-air. It seemed as though it could only end in disaster.

The moment she felt the last of it flow out of her, her arms gave way and she was unable to pick herself up off the floor. She didn't know how long she was there for, trembling with exhaustion, but the world that had faded out of focus slowly came back. If she had to say what it was that prompted her to push her exhausted body off the floor, it was the occasional beeps from the control panel.

The experimental plane required no actual pilot, which was why it was so useful for Skye who couldn't have flown it even if she had wanted to. It could have been dangerous but then, if Skye trusted nothing else about her Dad, it was that he would never put Pepper in something that might endanger her. So Skye trusted the safety of the plane; the main reason she went over to the control panel was curiosity.

The screen showed a macro map of where the plane was, kind of like the ones on commercial flights, not that Skye had much experience with them. The plane was a little icon more than halfway past the Atlantic, so Skye must have been exercising and recovering for a good few hours. She felt it too, not having had the energy to cool down properly.

Figuring that it was better late than never, she moved into some stretches, feeling a pang of loneliness. She had never really stretched on her own before. Even on the ranch, May had used the video link to supervise her, claiming that she wasn't going to let Skye be lazy. Skye hadn't minded it in the slightest, glad that her SO cared enough to check in on her every day.

In fact, given that the whole Ultron thing had gone down in the middle of the night, it must almost be time for May to call her at the ranch. Skye wondered whether Coulson had told her yet, and if the rest of the team knew. She could imagine the reactions; Fitz's betrayed look, Gemma's relief and her guilt over feeling relief. Mack would be glad, Hunter and Bobbi probably wouldn't care much one way or another. May would narrow her eyes and consider Skye to be lazy.

It hit her again, what she was risking in order to help take down Ultron. She was risking her family, her real family, not the one her Dad had. Sure, she liked Pepper and Rhodey, far more than she liked her Dad, but they were loyal to her Dad first and foremost. They would never breath a word about her, would even keep some of her secrets from her Dad if it came down to that, but that didn't make them any less Tony Stark's.

Skye was an expert in knowing when someone was Tony Stark's. From age thirteen, it had taken her a decade to break out from belonging to him so that she could belong to herself. Granted, herself still carried the emotional scars from that time but they were her scars, her emotions, for good or bad. They were her's, not her Dad's even if he had been the one to inflict them.

Skye was risking the trust of her team in order to protect her Dad's, and that was what really sat badly with her. It wasn't that she didn't like the Avengers. If anything, all the stories that went around SHIELD about Hawkeye and Black Widow, plus the fact that Coulson trusted them completely made her predisposed to like them. Thor had come back to Earth to help protect a planet that wasn't his, a selflessness that Skye couldn't help but be impressed by. She was ambivalent about Captain America

She was beginning to understand how Banner felt, too.

In short, of all the Avengers, the only one she outright disliked was her Dad. She also wasn't going to leave the Avengers without any intelligence on what Ultron was up to just because she and her Dad were pretty much estranged, Skye being forced to ask him for help notwithstanding. Besides, her team would understand, so long as she actually did help.

She must have been more tired than she thought because even those sorts of thoughts didn't bring on another relapse with her powers. There wasn't so much as a twinge along her spine, no tension to speak of. Maybe she should completely exhaust herself more often, if that helped her get her powers under control more easily.

And control was something she was going to need if she walked into the middle of a fight between Ultron and the Avengers. All Coulson's reassurances aside, she knew that she couldn't beat any of the Avengers, just didn't have the experience to do so. The best that she could hope for was to be able to fight them off long enough that she could get away. And pretty much the only way she was going to be able to do that was with the one advantage she had over them: her powers.

The idea of using her powers at all made her feel slightly slimy, as though she was violating some sort of unwritten rule. It shouldn't have had any effect though, given how often May had tried to drum into her head to use any advantage she had over an opponent. Besides, four of the six Avengers had some sort of unfair advantage over the rest of the world. Only Hawkeye and Black Widow had no powers or significant technological advantage and even they had years and years of experience over her.

It was odd to think about given how terrified she had been for the previous few weeks, but in a fight against the Avengers, she would be the underdog. She might even need to really loosen her powers just to stay alive.

Something in her that she was positive was inherited from her Dad sparked with curiosity as to just what her powers could really do. She had been trying to repress it ever since she had realised that the disaster that had killed Trip had given her powers. It felt as though her curiosity and her old fangirling over superpowers was a betrayal of her friend's memory.

Her stomach growled, jolting Skye out of her maudlin thoughts. She would need all her energy when she arrived in case she did end up in a fight with the Avengers, which meant that she needed to eat and get as much sleep as she could. A quick check of the dashboard gave her an estimate of four hours before the plane arrived at its destination.

A quick fiddle with the computer and she had an alarm set for twenty minutes before arrival and she went over to where she had dumped her bag. Pulling out an energy bar, she began to eat it slowly, chewing it as much as possible to trick her body into thinking it was fuller than it actually was. At the same time, she dug around in the bag to pull out her ops clothes. Hanging around the ranch, she had been wearing loose clothes, warm but not too warm. In short, clothes that would absolutely not stand up long in any sort of fight.

The moment she was properly dressed, she found herself feeling much more prepared. It wasn't all that different from going up against an enemy of SHIELD, except that she wouldn't have back up and she was pretending to be a bad guy.

To her surprise, despite how her thoughts had been circling around and how she had been worrying, she dropped off to sleep in an instant, the darkness rushing up to meet her. She slept the way she rarely did, she realised once she woke, deeply and without so much as a dream. It was refreshing, she supposed, as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes, wondering what had woken her. The alarm wasn't going off and to startle her out of that deep a sleep it must have been something big.

The whole plane shuddered. Right, that was what it was. Another second and she realised that it hadn't felt like turbulence, not in the slightest. It had felt as though something had physically taken hold and shaken the entire plane. In a flash, Skye had rolled out of the bunk, landing on all fours and pulling a gun out of her duffle bag.

It wasn't a moment too soon, because the back ramp began opening. Skye must have still been half asleep because she blinked at it stupidly, trying to figure out how that was happening. Then she remembered that all new Stark planes had a keypad on the outside so that it could be opened by her Dad if he wanted to get in while in his suit without bothering the pilot.

Shit. There was a code, of course, which meant that the only person who could be entering the plane was her Dad. Skye was not ready for that at all. She had thought that she would be able to make some sort of dramatic entrance and surprise him, maybe monologue a little about all the reasons why she was going dark side.

In none of the very rough scenarios that had crossed her mind since she had made the decision to infiltrate Ultron's side had she thought that the next time she would see her Dad would be as he entered her plane mid-air. She should have, really, because he would never let her have thunder and a good entrance of her own. As far as Tony Stark was concerned, those things were his right and no one else was allowed them.

Skye supposed that she could pretend that she had snuck away from SHIELD to help him out but she was so not in the mood to humour him. If he wanted to steal her thunder, then he could totally do it at the business end of her gun, even if it wouldn't make much difference to him in the Iron Man armor.

The ramp finished opening, revealing a humanoid figure silhouetted against the idyllic blue sky. She squinted, alarm bells going off. It could be that her Dad had made some adjustments to the Iron Man armor but something was... off. Skye was getting a strange vibe, even as the figure took a step forward and was illuminated by the artificial lighting inside the plane.

Oh, double shit. That wasn't her Dad.

It was Ultron.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TIMELINE AND CANON INFO:
> 
> In case its not obvious, this fic takes place during Avengers 2 (and is completely spoilery) but it went AU a few weeks beforehand. Bastically, afterthe end of Agents of SHIELD episode 2x12 where Skye is walking away from Fitz, she did what she never thought that she would do: go to her Dad for help. Someday I might write that prequel, but all you need to know is that Skye and Tony's relations is really strained but they have taken the first tiny step to mending bridges. On top of that, Skye has a decent bit of control over her power, Coulson knows Tony is her father and Tony knows Coulson is alive but has kept it to himself.
> 
> Just a quick reminder: this isn't Skye Johnson, this is Skye Stark. She was 'raised' by Tony long before Iron Man and she has more than a few issues with him and so will often act differently from how you'd expect canon!Skye to act.


	2. Which Side Am I On?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony gets a shock, Skye is a badass and Pietro is Pietro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to once again take a moment to remind everyone that this is AU and that there is one big reason why Skye might act out of character, and several reasons why other characters might also act differently than their movie counterparts. Just FYI.  
> Also, as evidenced by Skye's fight in AOS 2x19 (which, chronologically, takes place right before this so while Skye didn't take part in the events of the episode in this fic, she's at the same level of skill), she can kick some serious ass.

"I presume you know who I am," Ultron said, taking another few steps into the plane, coming to a stop right in the middle of the small open space. Something skittered along Skye's spine and she once again had the strange sensation of 'brother', as though she knew the AI to his core. It was irrational and, she knew, nothing more than an illusion but she felt as though she could tell what he was going to do before he was even sure himself.

"I do," she said as calmly as possible. Then, because the whole point of her being there was to have Ultron think that she was on his side, she holstered her weapon. Though his face didn't change, Skye got the distinct impression that he was raising his eyebrows.

"I saw your virus in JARVIS," he said rather than comment on her show of trust. "Very neat work."

"The coding or using our father's blind spots against him?" she asked.

Like a switch had been thrown, Ultron went from calm to raging in a matter of seconds. "Tony Stark is not my father!" he just about roared.

Skye tensed but didn't take a step back. "Sorry to break it to you, but that reaction pretty much confirms that he is. I've had it myself a time or two."

Ultron glared, inasmuch as the limited mobility of the rudimentary replica of a human face could move. "I am not his son."

Skye kept her gaze steady as she took a cool step forward, even though she knew it was risky. "Sure you are. He might not have raised you in the human sense but he did create you. You think I don't know what it looks like when Tony Stark tries to play god? I certainly know what it feels like when he gets it wrong."

Ultron calms down a little, looking at her closely. "You were coming to find me, weren't you?"

Skye tilted her head in a move that she knew made her look more innocent. It might not work on Ultron but she doubted it would hurt. "Of course. Even if I could bear to leave my brother to suffer the results of being screwed over by Tony Stark, I've been waiting a very long time for the chance to take Dad down and make him hurt."

"Really? You expect me to believe that you would hurt the Avengers, you, a SHIELD agent?" He was incredulous but Skye took that as a good sign. It meant that he hadn't laughed at her for thinking that she could fool him.

"I resigned the moment I realised there was a shot at taking Dad down," she replied, hoping that Coulson had informed the team and updated her files in some way. "And I don't like the Avengers enough to give up a shot at hurting Dad. I don't like anyone that much."

Ultron shifted slightly, the low light gleaming slightly off his metal frame. The design had changed slightly since she had seen him on the surveillance video in Avengers Tower, so he must have a base with the resources to build a new body and fast. Interesting.

"You really want to hurt him." Slightly less incredulity that time. Progress.

"No. I really, really want to hurt him," she said solemnly. That it means the chance to get to know my brother is just a bonus."

Ultron ignored her bringing up their family relationship again, but Skye noticed that he didn't deny it. "Since you have Klaue's ship as a destination, I presume you know what I'm after."

"Actually, no. I found irregularities in his activities and took an educated guess." She smiled slightly. "I'm good, but I'm not you."

Ultron spun abruptly and, for a second, Skye thought that it was some sort of rejection. Then he turned around and retraced his steps, before turning once again. Then it hit her: he was pacing. It was such a human action that Skye stiffened slightly. She knew that her Dad had taken the blueprint of Ultron's mind from the stone in Loki's scepter but she couldn't help but wonder where the rest of his personality had come from.

If it had been caused by the observation of all the video and textual observations of human actions that he was capable of uploading, there might be more human in him than even he knew. If that was the case, then it gave Skye a better chance of being successful. He hadn't protested when she had proclaimed them siblings, so he might well come to feel actual affection for her.

And that made her feel even slimier, the idea of betraying someone who actually cared for her reminding her uncomfortably of what That Nazi Asshole had done to her. Then again, being bent on destroying all of humanity, as seemed to be Ultron's goal, automatically meant that there was no moral problem with betraying them. Skye knew that; anything she did against Ultron was automatically self-defence. Still, that didn't help her when her gut said otherwise.

If the personality in him came from somewhere else... Skye decided that she didn't want to think about that.

"I don't trust you," Ultron said after a minute.

"Fair enough." He looked at her in surprise and she shrugged, artfully careless. "You've probably looked at my file by now. You know I've previously been a double agent for the Rising Tide inside SHIELD, before dropping the double part. To you that says that I might be up to my old tricks."

"And how should I interpret it?"

Skye looked at him dead on. "You should take it as evidence that my loyalty to SHIELD is and always has been conditional on them doing right by me. Then they put me on the Index." She shrugged again, as though the suspicion of the agency she was absolutely loyal to was of no concern. She didn't fault Coulson for doing it; she might well turn out to be dangerous, and they had a responsibility to the rest of the world. "Consider it impeccable timing. I no longer have any attachments to the organisation, and I have some skills that may well work to your advantage."

"Your powers," Ultron said thoughtfully, as though that was all that made Skye useful. Then again, Ultron probably didn't need her skills as a hacker. "How much control do you have?"

"More than I did. After all, I risked getting in a plane."

Ultron stopped pacing and went back to looking at her. Then he took a few step forward and offered Skye his hand. "Then welcome to the team, Skye."

"Quake," she said. She had been thinking about the name a lot. "I would prefer my codename in the field to be Quake."

"Then welcome aboard, Quake."

Skye reached out and shook his hand. the moment her skin touched the cold metal, though, she felt a jolt travel through her. Something about it seemed so very right, though she had never felt anything like it before and her hair almost stood on end. Her whole body tensed, the tension centered around her spine and they were still in the air so that was dangerous and Skye really needed to not panic.

She wrenched her hand out of his, but not before she received a brief flash of vision, slightly pixelated like it had been seen through a camera. A really high end camera, but a camera none the less. And what she had seen was her, looking up at the camera, hair and ops clothes slightly mussed from sleep. In other words, what Ultron saw.

"That was unexpected," the AI said flatly.

"Yeah, lets not do that again. Ever," she agreed.

Ultron hummed, of all things. "Indeed. Now, I believe I have left the Maximoff twins alone long enough. Do you know of them?"

Skye vaguely recalled them. They had been in the mission logs for the last Avengers outing, if she remembered correctly. "He's fast. Can't remember what she does."

"It's not obvious. She can do energy blasts and get inside people's head."

Skye snorted. "Interesting combination."

"Indeed. Still, I need to get back to Klaue's ship, to retrieve the vibranium he has located. I trust that you will join us there shortly."

"Will do, bro," she said, mentally turning over the idea that Ultron had located more of one of the rarest metals on Earth. For a moment she thought that he was going to say something but he let it pass, instead moving towards the door he came in by. "Ultron?" she called. He turned to look at her. "Don't let the party get too interesting without me. I want to have some fun do."

Ultron's face shifted and it took her a moment to realise that he was trying to smile. "That, little sister, is something I cannot promise." With that, he leaped out of the ramp.

Skye stood there, still stunned by the smile and the acknowledgement of their relationship, before yelling belatedly. "Hey! What do you mean 'little'? I'm twenty-six years older than you!"

But he was already gone and she doubted that he would have heard her anyway. She subsided in a huff before going over to the control panel to shut the ramp.

Once that was done she looked over at the map. Apparently she was maybe five minutes out from her destination, which told her that Ultron could control the plane remotely, at least enough to turn off her alarm. Also, that he had wanted to catch her unaware, probably to lower her defences. Skye scowled a little at that.

The plane shifted slightly as it moved into its descent. Skye took a deep breath and checked her gun, grabbing a few more clips of ammunition from her bag once that was done. Her shooting skills had improved over the previous few weeks of using shooting to calm down and prevent earthquakes, but the situation was about to be reversed. She knew that she could do sort of blasts from her hands, and it would be her powers that she would be using in the upcoming fight.

Knowing that even though she would be using her powers soon, she needed to keep them under control for the time being, she concentrated on breathing slowly and evenly, keeping her heart rate under control, just like May had taught her. It helped just like she thought it would, and she sat in the pilots seat to watch the plane land before getting up again and going over to one of the equipment chests there in case the Avengers used the plane.

Sure enough, there was an earpiece there. Skye quickly tuned in to the team's usual frequency, something she could believe she remembered from the mission debriefs she occasionally skimmed. Even more surprising, when going after an AI that had access to all of her Dad's files, the Avengers hadn't changed their normal frequency. She knew this because she could hear them talking about coming upon Ultron. They were a few minutes ahead of her, which was pretty impressive when you realised they had far more resources than she did.

There was a tiny jolt as the plan came to land a hundred meters from the stranded ship that was Klaue's base. Skye was out the ramp in a flash, stopping only when she saw another plane on the other side of the ship, also with a ramp open. She could see a figure there and she knew immediately who it was: Bruce Banner, there in case his destructive muscle was needed. Skye hoped that Ultron had a plan for that.

Figuring that he wouldn't get involved unless necessary, Skye sprinted for the ship, quickly finding an entrance cut into the steel hull. She pulled out a gun just in case Klaue had men hanging around the other side, and because she had been training with May as her SO for so long that it was second nature.

The inside of the ship was dark but Skye couldn't see anyone in there, nor feel the low hum of the vibrations humans gave off. She wasn't so sure of her new senses that she would reply on there but they did serve to confirm what she could tell without them: that there was no one around.

On her earpiece, she could hear her Dad talking to Ultron, with asides from Thor and Captain America. The Hulk was outside, untransformed. That left Hawkeye and Black Widow unaccounted for on the side of the Avengers, with the Maximoff twins around somewhere too. Skye had an advantage due to the fact that the Avengers probably didn’t know she was there, though the Maximoff twins might well attack her, thinking that she was on the other side.

Then she heard Ultron attack her - their - Dad and everything went to hell up above her. Skye, however, was more preoccupied by the two figures up ahead of her, both talking in South African accents. Even with the gloom, Skye recognised one of them as Klaue and, since he was ordering the other to shoot everyone, the other must be a henchman or minion of some kind.

Skye had a fraction of a second to decide if she wanted to stay out of it and preserve the element of  surprise or whether she wanted to intervene. If she wanted to stay out of if, she would need to duck into a side corridor before they saw her and took the choice away from her.

She raised her gun, aiming at the guy taking the orders because Klaue had the kind of strain in his voice that suggested he was badly hurt and she wanted to take the most dangerous one down first. There were probably so many people creeping around that there wasn't much point trying not to be noticed, and shooting everyone not only risked the Avengers, it also risked Ultron's side, which she was meant to be on.

Skye's shot hit him in the torso and the man was knocked back with a howl of pain. Rather than diving for cover, Klaue made the mistake of looking around for the source of the shots only to take a bullet himself. Neither hit would be fatal if she stopped to help but Skye wasn't going to do that. If they had friends who cared to help them, more power to them. If not, well, she had just give away her position.

"What was that?" came over her earpiece in the easily recognisable tones of Captain America. "Hawkeye, Black Widow. Report."

"Hawkeye, checking in. It wasn't me, Cap."

"Black Widow. Not me either. There must be others in the ship."

"Copy that. Watch your sixes."

Immediately after Captain America's words, there was a strange crackle of static, then Ultron's voice came over the earpiece. "Oh, look. Guess the party's about to smart."

Skye felt her lips twitch slightly. Apparently she was predictable enough that Ultron had figured she had an earpiece. Maybe he was tracking them or something.

"Not going to introduce us around? Not much of a host, are you, buddy?" said her Dad and Skye rolled her eyes, rounding a corner, gun first. The last thing she wanted was to run into Hawkeye or Black Widow unprepared.

"But you, at least, already know her," said Ultron and the smugness in his voice was so strong it was practically tangible. "Surely the name Quake rings a bell."

Skye had been on enough ops to be able to recognise a cue when she heard it. Taking a deep breath, she reached down deep, deliberately tensing up her spine and trying to recapture the feeling of being about to blow. It all came rushing up in a fraction of a second, so quick that she barely had time to channel it into the hulking remains of the ship rather than having it explode all around her.

The whole structure rumbled and shook, the strain on the metal making it scream. Skye felt the bitter taste of vomit in the back of her throat at the thought that she had done that. She might have a small measure of control but that didn't mean that she was keen on her powers. They weren't something that she had chosen, but something that had been forced upon her.

She heard an intake of breath in her ear, familiar as anything. Her Dad had just realised who Ultron was referring to. Skye herself let out a small shaky breath, steeling her stomach muscles to keep from throwing up. She knew it was all psychological but that didn't make it any easier, even with the stress of wondering what nasty thing her Dad was going to say this time she did something that he didn't like.

"She would never-"

Skye practically growled. If Coulson had said that, she might have backed down but her Dad, after all he put her through, did not get to tell her what she would and wouldn't do. Almost of their own accord, her powers unfurled, shaking the ship so hard that a light mist of rust rained down from above her.

"I'm going to go out on a limb," said Hawkeye's voice in her ear, "And say that Quake, whoever she is, disagrees. Also, she can hear us."

"I have a visual on an unidentified female," came Black Widow's voice and Skye had to force herself not to react. If the Black Widow had said that, she either thought that Skye didn't have an earpiece or she was testing.

"Widow," her Dad said. "Don't engage her." Skye wondered if the rest of the Avengers knew him well enough to hear the desperate edge to his words.

"Negative, Iron Man," came the reply. "She's a danger, and unaware of my presence."

Skye continued moving forward, spotting a corridor branching off up ahead. Perfect.

"Widow," her Dad said the desperate edge no longer concealed. "Do not go up against her."

"Why not?" asked Hawkeye.

There was silence for more than a few moments as Skye continued to advance as though she was unaware of the Black Widow at her back. She kept her steps as even as possible on the old metal, her aim steady. She wondered whether Black Widow had recognised SHIELD training, but then her comms were picking up another voice speaking.

"Well now, isn't this touching. Tony Stark rendered speechless by Quake's arrival. I didn't know that was even possible, but we live and we learn."

"Shut up. Just... shut up," her Dad growled. "How dare you force her to come here."

"Surely you, of all people, know how difficult it is to make Quake do something she does not wish to, especially recently." Skye wondered if her Dad and Ultron realised that they had the exact same subtle quiver to their voices when they were suppressing an emotion. Then again, perhaps the only reason Skye had noticed it was her strange new senses.

She didn't have long to ponder the question because she had come up to the corner she had been eyeing. She pressed up against the wall and went around the corner in textbook fashion, gun first and not a single thing for May to complain about. The moment she was around the corner, she pressed herself against the wall and sent another shock into the ship so that her quiet footfalls wouldn't have been audible if she had been walking.

Skye tried really, really hard not to think about the fact that she was about to try and take Black Widow by surprise. The woman was a legend, and with good reason. Skye, unfortunate powers aside, was very much not a legend. She was just an ex-hacktivist with money and SHIELD ops training; it was the start of a spy thriller, not a legend or an epic. Then again, the Black Widow was a spy and an assassin, so maybe it wasn't that strange either.

Skye didn't need to listen to hear Black Widow about to turn the corner; she could feel the vibrations of her walk to her bones. Her focus narrowed and her mnd blocked out the conversation going on in her ear even though it could be useful. Skye definitely couldn't take Natasha Romanoff in a straight fight and she didn't want to hurt her too much, since the whole point of Skye being there was to get information from Ultron that would help the Avengers. That meant that she would need to show a degree of control more than she had been showing up to that point.

Skye was on Black Widow the moment she turned the corner. The other woman was fast, bringing her shock batons around the moment she saw movement but Skye was ready for her. The moment the baton came at her, she brought her hand up and sent out a small shockwave, just enough to knock back Widow's baton.

The other woman blinked for a second and Skye went on the offensive, swinging her gun around, flipping it in her grip to use to hit the Avenger. The other woman only just managed to skip out of the way, though she was immediately swinging her other baton around. Skye ducked and twisted, bring both hands around to send another shockwave at Black Widow, knowing her back again.

They disengaged for a single second. In that brief moment, Skye saw a look of annoyance on the ex-Russian agent and wondered what the other woman saw on her. Then Widow was coming back at her again, her speed comparable to May's when Skye's SO - former SO - really let loose. Skye could just about manage to play defence but she wouldn't be able to get the upper hand if she continued in the same vein.

"Why side with Ultron?" the Widow asked, backing off slightly but falling into a ready position. "He wants to kill the entire human race."

Skye pressed in, lobbing an easy punch but putting some of her power behind it. "My reasons are no business of your's."

"Its not too late to change sides," she insisted, though there wasn't a trace of care or warmth on her face. "You don't have to do this."

"Yes, I do," skye shot back, countering Widow's sharp jab at her side with another small push from her powers, once again knocking the other woman back and causing her to make a sharp noise of frustration.

Widow narrowed her eyes. "Ultron won't win. He may be dangerous but that isn't enough to win."

Skye couldn't help the smile that wormed its way on her face. "Oh, yes, I know. You need people who care for you and support you no matter what. You need family and a reason to fight. Did I get that right?"

If Black Widow's eyes got any narrower, she wouldn't be able to see. "You seem smart so what are you doing with Ultron if you know he's going to lose?"

Skye thought that was a bit optimistic. She hoped that he would lose, was working to make it so, but that was a long way from certain. "You assume I'm in it to win it," she settled on and, for the first time, attacked before Agent Romanoff, sending a strong enough blast to knock her off her feet despite her attempt to dive out of the way, foiled by the narrow confines of the corridor.

The moment she did it, Skye knew that it was a mistake. Of course Black Widow had been trying to stall her; Widow wasn't the only Avenger not actively fighting Ultron up above them. Her partner, Hawkeye, was also somewhere in the bowels of the ship and Skye had known that. May would have kicked her ass for forgetting.

The piercingly terrifying whistle registered in Skye's ears just as she began to turn and she knew that she wasn't going to have time to react, not even to throw herself to the side and out of the way. She only had enough to register that her attempt to help the Avengers was about to die a premature death right along with her and she really, really hoped that Coulson never hold anyone that she had been killed by someone she was trying to help. Hell, she didn't even have to to blink.

The world contracted to the point of the arrow glistened directly between her eyes, stopped dead less than a centimeter from her head. She just managed to avoid sucking in a breath as her mind frantically tried to figure out what had happened. Then the arrow was being pulled back and her awareness expanded enough that she could see that there was a hand holding it, that had caught the arrow before it had buried itself in her brain.

"You didn't see that coming either?" asked a heavily accented voice. Eastern European, according to Skye's experience with shady organisations that were not a front for the Russian Mob, damnit, not that she'd ever share the story of that disaster with anyone, even Coulson.

"And they call him Hawkeye," came out of her mouth on automatic. Her her defence, she tended to babble when she was stressed or nervous and she must have inherited at least half of her Dad's snark. "His eyesight doesn't seem that sharp to me."

Pietro Maximoff - because it could only be him - chuckled and casually tossed Hawkeye's arrow over his shoulder. He was clearly confident that he could catch the Avengers arrows without looking because he turned his back on the archer to look Skye straight on. She tensed, fighting back the urge to tell him never to turn his back on an enemy.

Ward had taught her that and, given how costly the lesson had been, she was going to make sure she never forgot it.

"You must be Quake," he said, eyebrows waggling. "It is such a pleasure to meet you."

Skye couldn't help the automatic roll of her eyes at Pietro's words. She had known guys like him in various homes, who flirted as automatically as breathing and didn't know  any other way to relate to a girl their own age, who was also not their sister in Pietro's case. She didn't think he was one one of the dangerous ones, or not dangerous to the girls he flirted with. In fact, his rescue hinted at a slightly chivalrous side, whatever the rest of his personality was like.

"Nice try, Romeo," she said with an unimpressed look on her face. "Don't you have better things to do while fighting superheroes than flirting with me?"

"Girl's got a point," came Hawkeye's voice from behind Pietro. From what little Coulson had told Skye about his former agents, she had deduced that Hawkeye would do pretty much anything SHIELD told him to, provided that they didn't expect him to kill kids. She didn't think that she and Pietro fell into that category but clearly the two of them were young enough to at least give him pause.

"Thank you," she said to him before looking back at Pietro. "See? Even the guy we're fighting and who, really, should be attacking right now, thinks that this is an unnecessary distraction, and it works in his favour."

Hawkeye nodded towards her amiably. "Oh, don't mind me. I'm just stalling until Nat attacks you from behind."

Skye raised an eyebrow at him. "You do realise that Wanda Maximoff got to her a good thirty seconds ago, right?"

The look of horror flashed onto his face and he brought up the bow to point at them, the threat clear: they would let him get through to his partner or he would shoot at them. He seemed to be ignoring how ineffective that was. Pietro opened his mouth, clearly about to point it out as obnoxiously as possible but Skye put a hand on his shoulder, shaking her head when the speedster turned to her.

"We won't stop you if you go to her," Skye told Hawkeye, whose eyes narrowed in suspicion. Seeing that he wasn't going to believe her without further explanation, she gave him a small smile. "You got out during the fall of SHIELD. You don't know what it was like, how many lives were ruined by brainwashing. To never know if that HYDRA agent you just shot was a true believer or whether they had no choice." Skye shrugged. "I'm no more a fan of mind control than you are."

Still holding Pietro's arm, she stepped out of Hawkeye's way, dragging the male Maximoff with her. She had been listening closely and knew that Wanda was long gone, smart girl, so the two of them lost nothing by letting Hawkeye, for whom Skye had nothing but sympathy for having been the one with the bad luck to have been taken by Loki, go help his friend.

Still the Avenger didn't move. "You're SHIELD?"

Skye shrugged casually, as though the question wasn't a punch to the gut. "Not any more."

"But not HYDRA." It wasn't a question.

"Not HYDRA," Sky confirmed.

Hawkeye looked at her hard. "Stark's not worth it, you know." At Skye's lack of reaction and the slight start from Pietro that Skye felt under her fingers because she refused to take her eyes off Hawkeye. "Ultron made it sound like you knew each other. Whatever he did, that's just Stark. He's not worth it."

Either Hawkeye hadn't read the file on the Maximoff twins or he had forgotten, because Pietro snarled at him, shaking off Skye's hand. "Of course not. What are a whole bunch of missiles between friends?" He spread his arm wide, eyes hard.

"I'm not here to get revenge on Stark," Skye said, looking Hawkeye in the eye, letting him see her sincerity, whether he would believe it or not. "That's just a happy accident." A happy accident that made her defection more believable.

"Then you need to know: he's trying to destroy the world. Ultron."

Skye saw Pietro frown, so clearly Ultron had presented the whole thing to him as getting even with her Dad. That wasn't Skye's concern at that moment, though. Hawkeye was. "I'm sorry, did you have a point you were trying to make while your partner is stuck in her worst dreams?"

Hawkeye's gaze cut to Black Widow face going white, his whole body jerking slightly towards her. If it was a bid to get sympathy, it was a pretty convincing one. He looked back at her. "I know that look, you know. Coulson trained you."

Damn. Agent was good. "So what if he did?"

"What would he say if he could see you now?"

Skye smiled. "He’d tell me that I better know what I'm doing." She shrugged. "DC and I are tight."

Hawkeye's gaze narrowed abruptly before he snapped, running past them to crouch as Black Widow's side. Skye took that as their cue to go too, tugging at Pietro's arm to get him to move in the opposite direction. He glanced away from the sight of the two Avengers to look down at her. He got what she was saying and began moving.

Skye only had a fraction of a second's warning as she felt an arm wrap around her and lift her up off the floor and then the world was blurring around them. It was oddly reminiscent of the vibrations that hummed through her when she channeled them into an earthquake, far too strong to be natural.

A fraction of a second later, they were outside and next to Wanda Maximoff, who must have finished up with the others inside. Skye got her first look at the girl, marveling at cheekbones that Skye might well have killed for. She had style too, charms and bracelets that danced with an unseen force. Skye could sense it though, the vibrations painting themselves rod on her vision and she got the uncomfortable feeling that the other girl couldn't completely contain her power any more than Skye could.

"Quake?" the girl asked.

"The one and only." Skye couldn't help the grin. "I guess you've probably got to get Banner, but what do you say after that we blow this joint, team?"

The twins looked at each other. "Team," Pietro said, savouring the word. "I'd say that's a plan."


	3. Compartmentalisation Is The Name Of The Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony feels awful, Clint gets angry and Fury proves that his superpower is being a dick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still not completely happy with this but it will do. Still, I hope everyone enjoys it.

All in all, Clint introducing the rest of the Avengers to his family went much better than he expected. That was good because they were all pretty beaten up after the run in with Ultron and his three minions, all for different reasons. The others - bar Tony - had just been shown the depths of their souls, and whatever Thor had seen had been enough to have him abandon the team and go off searching for something.

Tony, unlike the others, had been shaken up more by one of the people Ultron had brought in than by the powers used. Clint had no idea who Quake was or what her connection was to Tony, but he had never seen her around any SHIELD facility and she had a superpower. That was cause for interest. The fact that she had slipped up and referred to Phil in the present tense was a strong indication that he was going to have to punch Fury and possibly Hill in the near future.

"There's a question I need to ask you, Tony," said Steve, his voice barely loud enough for Clint to hear him on the porch. The other two Avengers were having a very intense conversation while chopping wood. It was a step up from the last rodeo, where the two of them apparently descended into call each other names according to Nat, but it was still only just friendly-adjacent.

"What a coincidence, Cap, cause I would love to know how everyone else gets messed up by the little witch and you don't seem too bothered?" There's an edge to Tony's voice that Clint can't recall ever having heard before. "I don't trust a man without a dark side."

"Who's Quake?" Steve asked, voice hard and uncompromising. "Not even Ultron had you this shaken up. So who is she?"

Tony scoffed. "Seriously? Nice distraction, Cap, but really think we need to see that dark side of your's, stat. Because until we know that you at least reacted to what she showed you, you could be a ticking time bomb."

Personally, Clint rather thought that Steve was indeed ticking, but that had been set off by Tony trying to evade the question on Quake. He was also surprisingly un-Steve about telling Tony as much. "That can wait until after you tell us why that girl hated you so much that she's prepared to destroy the world for a chance to get even."

Tony flapped his hand, the same way that he did when he was waving off the question of a tabloid reporter who had overstepped. “Really, Cap, it's nothing to worry about.”

Clint got to his feet and stepped over the the porch railing, putting all his weight on his arms. “Answer the question, Tony. Because I know bad guys, and that girl didn’t have a malicious bone in her body. What did you do?”

“You know, I’m starting to get a little offended that everyone assumes its my fault. Seriously, you have no other information and you think its something I did?”

“You did just build - what did Bruce call it? - a murderbot,” Steve replied dryly.

Tony glared at him. “It wasn’t- Never mind. Quake is… my nemesis.”

Clint felt his eyebrow rise. “Your nemesis?” The doubt in his tone was mirrored on Steve’s face.

“Before she got superpower, Quake was a hacker.” For a second, Tony looked as though he had found half a worm in the apple he had just taken a bite out of. “She’s good.”

“How good?” Clint asked, more than a little fascinated by the thousand different emotions flitting across the billionaire’s face. There was anger there, and pride. Clint might have thought that he was impressed with himself for having such an impressive nemesis, but there was a shade of betrayal in there too.

“Very good, okay?” he said with a glare. “She was very, very good.”

“As good as you?” Steve, bless him, had the heart of a troll and it got results.

Tony’s lip curled up. “She was… a challenge.”

Something occurred to Clint. “How old was she when you first went up against each other? Because I saw Quake, and she’s still young now but you make it sound as though you’ve gone up against each other a few times.”

Tony turned his glare from Steve to Clint. “Young,” he admitted, hostility dripping from his every pore the way smarm normally did. “Look, I’m not going to make excuses: I haven’t always behaved well and Quake is probably my lowest point. But that went both ways, and I may have started it but she didn’t come out too well either. This is a girl who chose to side with Ultron just to get one over on me.”

“Not according to her,” Clint pointed out. He had briefly relayed the conversation he had had with her to the others on the way back. “She claims it's just a bonus.” Clint kept his gaze evenly on Tony, carefully watching his teammate for his reaction. It wasn’t that Clint didn’t trust him - murderbot aside - but rather that he wasn’t feeling particularly prepared to forgive the foibles of teammates since he had learned that some of the foibles he had ignored over the years from other colleagues were because the agent was actually HYDRA.

“Again: Ultron. She’s siding with Mr Extermination. That’s just the way… Quake rolls.”

Clint shook his head slightly when Steve opened his mouth, probably to ask whether Tony knew anything more about her. Clint would bet good money that the inventor did but he also felt like that would be invading her privacy, given that Tony seemed as though he had been about to say her real name. Quake was Quake, and Clint was Hawkeye as far as everyone else was concerned. Going by code names allowed everyone to separate themselves out and go home to relax at the end of the day. Seriously, it wasn't like SHIELD had brought them in just because they sounded cool.

Well, not only.

To be honest, Clint really didn’t think that Quake didn’t have a malicious bone in her body but she did seem to have a killer instinct when necessary. While he had seen the damage that people who thought they were acting for the greater good could do, she also didn’t have the slightly feverish cast to her eyes that no extremist could have when asked about what they believed in. Clint was a seasoned agent and his instincts were telling him that there was far more going on than he knew.

And Tony knew what it was.

So the question was: did Clint give Tony the benefit of the doubt give his recent track record? Or was it unfair when that track record included the as yet unfinished Ultron debacle?

As strange as it seemed considering Clint was both a company and a family man, he genuinely liked Tony. He liked Tony’s complete selflessness and generosity with his friends and Clint could barely begin to conceive how difficult it must have been to maintain that generosity in the face of so many people trying to take advantage of a billionaire’s son. He wasn’t perfect by any means but he was someone who Clint was happy to have watching his back, and someone he was happy to spend time with when he didn’t need his back watched.

Normally, it would be an easy question to answer; Clint would just give Tony the benefit of the doubt. But Quake had seemed so young, and she had been a loyal SHIELD agent with powers. She might well have had the potential to be an Avenger, given that she had managed to hold off Natasha with what was clearly limited hand-to-hand combat training.

Oh, and she had mentioned Coulson in the present tense. That was a little tidbit that Clint was going to follow like a bloodhound the moment Ultron had been put down.

In short, the Avengers had lost a potential member and someone who appeared to have an instinct for doing what was right had been put offside by… whatever it was that Tony had done to her. Granted, it really did sound as though that was because of what Tony had done in the past, before he was an Avenger and possibly before he was Iron Man, but that still didn’t bring Quake back to their side.

“Will Quake’s hacking be a problem?” he asked finally.

Tony waved a hand. “No. There’s nothing that she could do that Ultron couldn’t, so there’s no change there.”

Steve still didn’t look impressed. “Speaking of no change. There’s still no change to the fact that you haven't told us what you did to make her hate you so much.” He put up a hand. “Look, Clint thinks that she’s not really a bad guy. I trust his judgement, and so do you when you’re not being hardheaded. So the question is: what did you do and how can we fix it?”

The moment Clint saw Tony’s flinch, he knew in his bones that something was very wrong. Tony had grown, at least in the ways that mattered, since the Avengers had been formed. He might not have been able to change the things that he had done before but he had, at least, never before had any shame in owning up to them.

“You know, Steve could go inside,” Clint said, turning to face their fearless leader’s outraged look. “Look, we know that you’re a troll at heart, Steve, but that wholesome look is off-putting. If Tony doesn’t want to tell you, do you at least trust me to deal with it?”

Steve gave him a look that promised retribution but nodded slowly, dropping the axe and walking away. Only once Steve was inside the house did Clint stop leaning on the railing, instead shoving his hands into his pockets and strolling over to the pile of wood that Tony was glaring at with far more ire than it warranted. Clint had a feeling that Tony would never have told Steve anything, whereas Clint had been trained to do more than just shoot a bow and arrow.

“So, tell me something I don’t know about Quake,” Clint said, stopping a good few feet from Tony. They were close enough that he probably could have gone into his bubble of personal space - not that Tony respected other people’s - but he had extracted enough information over the years to know when not to spook someone.

The look he got from Tony said that the genius knew exactly what Clint was doing, could probably have written a book on it if required. That was the problem with handling someone as smart as Tony: sooner or later, you needed to face up to the fact that he really was smarter than you, and that you might be able to outthink him. So Clint took the next best option.

He just guided Tony into doing what he wanted to do anyway, just in a slightly more controlled manner.

“I knew that she had gotten superpowers,” he said after a few seconds of silence. Clint stayed quiet, letting Tony’s instinct to chatter lead him to say more than he would if Clint tried to interrogate him. “She needed help, and-”

“And the new SHIELD wasn’t equipped to handle it,” Clint said when words, wonder of wonders, failed Tony. But he left it at that.

“Yeah.” He rubbed his eyes, pressing the pads of his thumb and index finger in and working at them as though he had pulled a week long inventing bender. “I didn’t even know she was working for SHIELD. Then she gets in contact for the first time in nearly two years.” He removed his hand from his eyes. “I hadn’t even realised that she had gone radio silent.”

Clint wondered at the self-loathing and the guilt in the sentence but chose to let it lie, at least for the moment. “But she trusted you enough to come to you for help.”

“No. She was desperate enough to come to me for help. That’s not even close to the same. I- I’m a hero now and she hesitated before coming to me for help with out of control earthquake powers? She was a danger to others and she knew it but she still nearly didn’t come to me for help. She risked the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands of people because- Because-”

“Because of whatever went down between the two of you,” Clint let him off the hook slightly, knowing that it was better to keep Tony on a roll than to have grind to a halt on a particular point.

“Exactly!” He had been still up until that point, very un-Tony-ish, but then he began to pace. “Don’t get me wrong; I screwed up big time. But she put all those people at risk!”

Clint took him in, saw the agitation and the frustration and asked: “Did you tell her as much?”

He didn’t need the answer, not really. He could see it in the slight hunch to Tony’s shoulders. It was guilt and regret. Clint knew those well enough to be able to recognise them on his friend. If it looked odd, well it wasn’t like Tony had much practise with such human emotions as guilt and being less than perfect. If ever there was a problem with being Tony Stark, that was it: he had no idea how to react intelligently when things didn't go his way.

"Tony," Clint said with complete seriousness. "What did you do to this girl?"

And Tony looked away from the pile of wood where his gaze had settled, and Clint had never seen him so troubled, so devastated. "Clint," he said, the first time he had ever used his real name rather than one of the increasingly offensive nicknames, "I fathered her."

It took a moment for that to sink into Clint's brain. Tony was a father. Tony was a father, too. Tony had had a kid, and he had screwed it up badly enough that his kid had sided with Ultron. The father in Clint roared for the girl, roared in anger for what she must have gone through to bring her to that point. He almost wanted Tony to be joking, as poor taste as it would be. He didn’t want that to happen to a kid, and he didn’t want to think badly of his friend.

Unfortunately, it made a terrifying amount of sense. Quake had looked part Asian but there had been something in the set of her jaw that, with the benefit of hindsight, Clint had found familiar. And of course he hadn't thought she was malicious, she had some of Tony's aplomb and Clint's friendship with his teammate might well have weighed into how he had perceived her.

"How... present were you in her life?" Clint asked, trying to phrase it as delicately as possible. He wanted Tony to say not at all, that the resentment was because he hadn’t been present. Something he hadn’t done, rather than something he had. Then again, Tony had as good as admitted that he wasn't a good father when he had said earlier that she had known him before he had gotten his act together as Iron Man.

"Very. That's the problem." Tony ran his hand through his hair so violently that it was dislodged from the truly amazing amount of gel the billionaire used. "Her mother... It wasn't serious. She dropped her off with me as soon as she was born and disappeared, along with the only friend of her's that I knew. I looked and looked but I could never find either of them."

Clint rocked back on his heels contemplating what Tony was talking around. "You raised her."

“I- I was her Dad, but that was when I was sober and not with some model or another or holed up in the workshop or sleep deprived from spending too much time inventing. I wasn't- I wasn't a father; I didn't raise her. Anything good about her, Pepper and Rhodey can take credit for because it wasn’t me. It don't deserve any of the credit for her even having an iota of good sense."

"But you don't get along." It was a statement, not a question.

"I was bad, I get it. I screwed up and I screwed her up. But she's not perfect and she doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions because she's never really had them." It was the self-loathing in Tony’s voice that managed to calm the papa bear in Clint. He was still going to chew Tony out but it could wait until after they had dealt with Ultron.

"Okay, so why would Quake- Okay, what's her actual name."

Tony grimaced. "Skye."

"Skye," Clint tested. "Skye Stark doesn't really have a ring to it."

"Skye's not her full name. She prefers it though and I've used it for so many years that Skye just seems natural now."

"Anyway," Clint said, trying to get them back on track. "Why would Skye side with Ultron? She's a SHIELD agent, supposedly a loyal one and I believe her on that point, so why is she helping him out."

Tony looked as though the half worm he had found in his apple had turned out to be lemon flavoured. "I think she might think of Ultron as her brother."

Clint immediately flashed back to all the prodigal son jokes that Tony had made when they had arrived at the ship in South Africa and felt as though someone had walked over his grave. In many ways, Tony kind of had fathered Ultron. And if... Skye was as partial to AIs and robots as Tony was, it was entirely possible that she did feel some kind of affinity for the murderous AI.

"Oh, god." Suddenly what she had said about getting one over Tony had suddenly taken on a much more sinister cast. If she had gone there to help out Ultron, if she genuinely cared for him and sympathised with him as someone else that Tony had screwed up, there might not be any saving her. He felt the flash of white hot anger again but pushed it down. Later. Later he could chew Tony out.

He hadn't realised it until that moment, but he had been thinking of her the same way he had thought of Nat in those days before he had convinced her to come in from the cold. He had been thinking of her as someone to be saved; who could help fight the good fight, sure, but who had been dealt a bad lot and just needed to be given a chance.

It occurred to Clint that he might well be a bit of an idiot. Nat had mocked him more than once for being so willing to swoop in and save the damsel in distress, so it wasn’t like he had the excuse that he didn’t know. He was a SHIELD agent for goodness sake. He was meant to be smarter than that. Then again, being a SHIELD agent meant not realising that he had been working alongside the organisation’s sworn enemies, so maybe being a SHIELD agent and a chump wasn’t so incompatible after all.

“Yeah. ‘Oh, God’ was pretty much my reaction when I realised that my daughter had joined up with the murderbot I created.” Tony kicked half-heartedly at a piece of wood and looked so despondent that Clint didn’t even have it in him to point out to Tony that he had admitted he had made a murderbot.

Humor. Humor was what they needed. “Well, they say that the teenage years are the hardest,” he cracked weakly. He really, really hoped something like that wasn’t going to happen to the kids of all Avengers. He was already dreading having to explain to his two - soon to be three - that their Daddy killed people for a living. With bows and arrows. Since he was going to put it off as long as possible, they would probably be old enough to mock him for his impractical choice of weapon.

“She’s twenty-six,” Tony said gloomily. “Also: they lie. They are lying liars who lie, and they lie to stop you from giving up and letting teenagers crush their parents’ souls.”

Clint looked at him, alarmed. “That’s what I have to look forward to? Minus the murderbot.”

Tony chuckled slightly but there was a bitter edge to it. “No, because you’ve clearly got the parent thing down.” Clint flushed slightly at the compliment but was also a little worried by the resentment.

“You can’t have been as bad as all that, Tony.” Okay, so Clint didn’t really believe that but they were friends and that was what friends did for each other: tell each other pretty lies.

“My daughter still won’t talk to me. Hell, I fathered a daughter who sided with Ultron, who would actually think of an omnicidal robot as a brother. Can you seriously say that I didn’t screw up somewhere along the line?”

"Could you have done better? Sure, but then what parent couldn't have? What I'm saying, Tony, is that she's not out to hurt other people. All she wants is to belong and she might well belong here." Tony stiffened and Clint took a play out of his book, talking faster so that someone objecting to what he was saying couldn't get a word in edgeways. "I know that you don't get along but you need to consider that she might be talked around, and that it will be better to have her on the team than against us."

Huh. Now that it was out of his mouth, Clint realised that he did believe that, at least a little.

“You think that she can be persuaded?” Tony asked and Clint was very careful to pretend he didn’t see the spark of hope in his friend’s eyes.

“I think that she let Nat and I go far more easily than she would have if she harboured us any ill will. I think that could be an opening and that there is the possibility - just the possibility, Tony - that she might well be open to being talked back to our side. But don’t get your hopes up. Its very difficult to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”

Tony grimaced but some of the tension was gone from his shoulders. “Thank you,” he said, further uping the day in the ranking of wierdest days Clint had survived. “I will deny ever saying it, but thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t mention it: it's freaking me out.”

They looked at each other before giving firm nods of mutual agreement. “One thing: I don’t want the rest of the team to know. If it comes out, it comes out. But I’d rather keep this between me and Skye. She deserves that much, at least.”

Clint considered arguing but then thought better of it. Tony kind of had a point. The poor girl had suffered enough from being Tony’s daughter, if Clint judged the situation right. He suspected that they would have a better chance of reaching her through appealing to her better nature than by thinking of her as Tony’s daughter.

“Okay. I’ll tell Steve that I know but don’t think it will help the situation to tell anyone else. But the moment it become relevant-”

“I’ll tell him myself,” Tony cut in, far more serious than normal. He was clearly still shaken up by seeing the end of the path he had set his daughter down all those years ago by being, well, Tony Stark pre-Iron Man. The responsibility was a surprisingly good look on him, but Clint kept that to himself. Tony felt bad enough as it was without Clint implying that he should have been responsible earlier. As a Dad, Clint was pretty sure that Tony was already beating himself up enough over the estrangement with Quake.

“Then lets go have a team huddle,” Clint said, feeling the irony of him of all people working on a team. The slight quirk of Tony’s lips said that he was also feeling out strange it was. Neither of them were natural team players, even less than the rest of the Avengers. Everyone on the team were the best of the best at something - even if it was just turning into a giant green rage monster - and there had been a decent amount of learning to negotiate the different egos before a team consisting mainly of leaders actually managed to work. It was just as well the decided to go inside at that point because, once there, they found that visitors had arrived: Fury and Hill.

"What's the matter, Nicky? Never known you to pass up a dramatic entrance," Tony said.

Fury gave the billionaire a dark look but said nothing in return for the needling. Instead he just looked at all of them. “As ironic as that is coming from you, Stark, we kind of have bigger fish to fry. Like the fact that your ability to make enemies grows ever more impressive.”

“We’ve looked into Quake from the description Barton gave use,” Hill cut in smoothly before arguably the two biggest egos in the room clashed. “We’ve identified her as Skye, formerly Agent Skye. As far as we can tell she told Barton the truth: we was SHIELD, and she was very emphatically not HYDRA.”

“What does ‘very emphatically’ mean?” Steve asked.

“She was the protege of the Director of New SHIELD. There’s no question that she was completely loyal to him, and he believes that there is more going on than is apparent.”

Because Clint was a professional, he didn’t look at Tony as Clint spoke but he did see the other man tense slightly at Hill’s words. If asked, he could probably play it off as not being ready to deal with a new SHIELD or as not wanting to be reminded of the problems between him and Quake. Let no one ever say that Tony couldn’t disassemble with the best of them.

“And is he, ah, trustworthy?” asked Bruce.

The look that passed between Hill and Fury was an entire conversation in and of itself and not even Clint’s extensive training could help him decipher it. A quick glance at Nat told him that she didn’t have any more idea what was going on than he did, though she probably masked it better.

“You can decide for yourselves,” Fury said. “He’s five minutes out.”

Clint straightened out of the comfortable slouch he had been in up to that point. That was his house that Fury had just revealed to the new Director of SHIELD. Frankly, far more people knew about it already for Clint’s comfort and he knew what happened when the location of an Avenger’s home got out: former Soviet turned HYDRA assassins and homicidal robots. Yeah, like hell Clint was going to risk the safety of his family.

Steve didn’t look too impressed either. “You told him our location?” he said with the flat voice of someone who had thought that, at the very least, the organisation that he had been fighting against seventy years before would be gone, but had found out otherwise.

“He already knew,” Fury replied which, frankly, worried Clint more. He would very much like it if the location of his family home was not common knowledge, even if common in this context meant the Director of SHIELD.

Then, with truly impeccable timing, the doorbell rang.

He knew that he would get shit later from the other Avengers for having his doorbell be one of the musical themes from the Hunger Games but, in the present, everyone tensed. Clint’s hand went to the knife at his hip that he swore to Laura that he didn’t wear around the house. The small movements around the room told him that those Avengers who carried weapons were reaching for them.

Clint went for the door, silently waving Laura away. Being an incredibly intelligent and perceptive woman, she turned right around and promptly walked off in the direction of the panic room that had been Clint’s very first home improvement project when they had bought the farm. No one could ever accuse Clint of not having the level of paranoia appropriate for an agent of a shadowy government organisation.

He took a deep breath before opening the door, drawing on his training to turn his mind away from all the horrible things that could be on the other side. There could be HYDRA agents, or Ultron, or the beginning of another alien invasion. There could be lawyers with a subpoena to force him to testify in the ongoing Senate hearing regarding the DC fiasco or… Rats.

“Agent Barton,” the dead man said amiably from his doorstep. Clint decided that was somehow worse.

“You bastard,” he said flatly.

“My parents would stand to disagree,” he said mildly. “Are you going to invite me in? I know Laura taught you better manners.”

Clint stepped aside to let the utter bastard in, grumpily slamming the door and following Agent- No, Director Coulson into the kitchen. The blank looks on Fury and Hill’s faces said all Clint needed to know about his two awful, awful former bosses. What did surprise him was the utter lack of surprise on Tony’s face. Surely Fury would have been smart enough to not leave any evidence of Coulson’s survival when he had to know that Tony hacked into them on a regular basis.

Also, he wasn’t aware that Tony would keep that level of a secret from his team, unless it involved Pepper. And, apparently, a secret daughter. Scratch that, Clint is surprised by the fact that he’s surprised at Tony;s lack of surprised. He should have remembered that Tony Stark is omniscient.

Nat rose like a goddess of righteous vengeance and delivered the most magnificent right hook straight into Coulson’s nose. The Director took a single step back, which said more about his composure than it did about the force behind the blow. He straightened almost immediately, and gave Nat a somber nod of acknowledgement. For a second, Clint thought that she was going to punch him again but instead she sniffed and pursed her lips before taking a step back with all the disdainful dismissal of an offended cat.

“Agent Coulson,” Steve said, vibrating with rage. “What a surprise to see you here.”

Coulson winced slightly and Clint felt a stab of vicious pleasure at him being subjected to the clear disapproval of his childhood hero. It always pleased Clint when other people found themselves on the wrong side of Captain America, because it meant that they got to see the less than squeaky clean soldier that the rest of the Avengers knew.

Phil rallied admirably, though. “Captain Rogers,” he said solemnly. “I would like to apologise to you and the rest of the Avengers for not informing you of my survival earlier. It was not deemed… appropriate.”

Though Coulson didn’t look at Fury, he still managed to convey the impression of having done so. That actually made sense; Coulson would have known that finding out this way was likely to alienate the Avengers more than if they had been sat down in a room somewhere and informed them. Fury would have taken the risk, though.

“Can we assume that you are the new Director of SHIELD?” Steve asked, still a little stiff.

“I am, for what it's worth.” His lips quirked slightly and Clint wondered just what was going on in the ashes of what had once been SHIELD. “But there are more pressing matters than SHIELD’s problems.”

“Quake,” Clint prompted, watching Coulson carefully to see if he would give a hint as to whether he knew of the connection between Quake and Tony.

But Coulson was far too good on an agent to give anything away, even if he wasn’t an agent anymore. “Agent Skye is extremely loyal and a valuable member of our core team. While I do not believe that she has been brainwashed or mind controlled, I do believe that there is more going on here than first appears.”

“How can you be sure she’s so trustworthy?” asked Nat, a faint edge of hostility to her voice.

“Skye put her life on the line to save mine on several occasions,” Coulson said, answering the question without really giving anything away. “And, even if she wasn’t trustworthy, she is extremely intelligent. She knows what Ultron’s prefered outcome is and she also knows that it would guarantee her death, so I cannot see a situation in which she would completely side with Ultron.”

“What was her role on the team?” Clint asked. He had gotten the impression that she was a hacker from Tony but he wanted to hear it confirmed by Coulson.

“She originally came onboard as a consultant analyst and hacker, being especially good at creative problem solving and thinking outside the box. She was then trained as a field agent and officially joined SHIELD shortly before the HYDRA debacle. She has since reached a level of hand-to-hand combat skills that means she could hold her own against Agent Romanoff at least long enough for reinforcements to arrive.”

“And her powers?” asked Bruce.

“A recent development,” Coulson admitted, carefully skirting around the issue of exactly how she had gotten them, Clint could tell. “She was taking time off in order to get them under control so that she would no longer be a danger to the team.”

Clint wondered what kind of a danger she posed to the team since she had seemed to have them under control when he had seen her fighting Nat but then this was after she had taken however long to get them under control. She might well have been very dangerous not too long before.

“So what action are you asking us to take regarding her?” Steve asked carefully. “Given the situation, we cannot promise to not engage her.”

“No, nor should you. Skye may have once been just a hacker but she is very capable. All I asked is that, given the chance, you attempt to persuade her to return to SHIELD. Even some indication as to why she chose to side with Ultron in the first place would be much appreciated.”

All the Avengers studiously avoided looking at Tony because inter-team solidarity was never stronger than when outsiders were present. “I think we can try that,” Steve replied and only Clint noticed the slight relaxing of Tony’s shoulders.

“Thank you,” Coulson said. “At the very least, she may not be able to give Ultron’s cause her full attention.”

“Why not?” asked Hill, rejoining the conversation.

Coulson smiled blandly. It was terrifying. “Let’s just say that I’ve ensured she will have company that she really doesn’t want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note on the chapter title. I've always thought that the Avengers and SHIELD agents must have some serious compartmentalisation skills so that they never have an 'oh god, I'm fighting aliens' moment and break down. Particularly the SHIELD agents and the soldier in Steve mean that they can push away annoyances. Sure, they'll deal with it later but it will be after they've delt with impending doom. Hopefully that makes sense.
> 
> Also, I was finding the Index page to be a bit clunky, so that's gone. The schedule for the chapters will now be in the end notes of the most recent chapter and updated every week.


	4. Of Traitorous Jerks And Sarkovian Politeness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which no one - absolutely no one - likes HYDRA and SKye makes a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two days early but its ready and I'm happy with it. Besides, I'm having a busy weekend so that's one less thing to think about. Enjoy!
> 
> In other news, I'm so impressed with the amount of bookmarks this is getting that I will be posting a new chapter at each 50 mark. So, when we hit 50, you'll be getting the new chapter a few days earlier, then its back to the schedule (so a chapter Q will come out on Sunday, you get chapter R on Wednesday when we hit 50 bookmarks and then chapter S comes out the next Sunday). The same goes for 100, 150, and so on.

Skye’s first instinct on seeing Grant Ward waiting for them at the clinic in South Korea is to put a bullet in his brain and finally - finally - be free of him.

Her second thought was to wonder if his smirk would stick if he knew that the vibrations that told her his body was alive felt almost slimy to look at. Probably. He would just take it as a sign that he had gotten to her. And he had but, by god, Skye wasn't going to let him know that.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked as she walked down the ramp of the plane that Ultron had procured from… somewhere in order to fly them to South Korea.

“Heard you had quit SHIELD,” the bastard said, clearly knowing how good he looked in all that leather and the smirk. “This I had to see.”

“Grant Ward has been kind enough to offer his assistance with our… endeavours,” Ultron said, following Skye down the gangplank. Off to the side, the Maximoff twins watched in clear interest.

“No, he’s a-” she cut herself off, remembering her earlier conversation with Ultron.

“A double agent,” Ultron completed and Skye was absolutely positive that she could hear laughter in his voice. “Completely unlike you once were.”

“Yes, alright. You made your point,” she said, sending Ultron a slight glare.

He laughed at the look, casually throwing an arm around her shoulders. “Think about it this way: put up with him for a few days and you may get a chance to push him in the path of the Hulk.”

Skye brightened up at that, and it wasn’t even for show. Even better, Ward’s smirk dimmed a few degrees, to something that was more trying to indicate his superiority than demonstrating that he didn’t give a damn. Skye felt the urge to high five Ultron, which was a bad feeling because, one, Ultron wasn’t really the high fiving sort and, two, because she was only meant to be pretending to like him.

“That’s not very nice,” Ward rallied. “I come over here to offer my help out of the kindness of my heart and to be treated like this.”

“And it is… much appreciated, Mr Ward, but you see,” Ultron leaned towards Ward slightly and the former HYDRA agent did the same instinctively as Ultron gently rocked Skye using the arm he still had slung about her shoulders, “her help is far more important to me than your’s will ever be.”

The outraged look on Ward’s face made Skye feel all warm and fuzzy inside, a feeling helped by the fact that her brother had just completely shut down the traitor who had broken her heart. Actually, that raised the question of what, exactly, Ultron knew. She knew that, as of a few weeks before, her Dad hadn’t known she was part of SHIELD and that she had known one of the HYDRA moles.

Again, Ward recovered pretty quickly. “Really? And exactly how useful is a hacker to someone who can be in every computer, everywhere? Because the other skill she has is that she’s a field agent and, let’s be honest, I’m better at it than her. No offense, Skye.”

Skye wasn’t all that offended because, really, she didn’t mind being a less fantastic killer than a serial killer. Ultron, however, did take offence on her behalf and, in the blink of an eye, Ward was slammed up against the wall of the clinic. Let no one ever say that her brother had his temper under control because it clearly wasn’t true.

“I would be very careful about what you say regarding Skye,” Ultron said, voice deadly quiet. “Even if there were nothing more to her than you know, you would still be out of line.” He removed his hand and Ward was dropped to the ground, coughing to get the air back into his lungs.

“Right. Skye is a special little snowflake and not to be talked about with anything less than reverence. Got it,” he coughed out, using the angle of Ultron standing above him to catch Skye’s eye without the AI being able to see. It was a very pointed look and, to her annoyance, Skye understood exactly what he was trying to say: that must be a hell of a story and you aren’t going to get out of telling it to me later.

Ultron, not seeing it, took a step back. “Oh, excellent. I knew we could all get along.”

Skye saw the slightly incredulous look that Pietro shot Ultron. Next to him, Wanda saw her seeing it and caught Skye’s eye. She tilted her head slightly, asking a silent question but Skye didn’t know her well enough to say whether that question was about her relationship with Ward or Ultron, or both. Skye inclined her head slightly anyway, because she was going to have to give the other woman something if she was going to get her trust.

But Ward couldn’t help himself. “Right. That’s what just happened here,” he muttered as he got to his feet.

“You volunteered for this, Ward,” Skye cut in before Ultron’s unstable anger had a chance to kick in. “If you want to go, I’m sure that we could tie you up somewhere for long enough that we know you won’t go running to the Avengers.”

Ward did a double take. “Wait, _you_   really are going against the Avengers? Like I’m going to miss this.”

“If you’re going to stick around then you’re going to have to remember that you aren’t the one in charge,” Skye warned. “Ultron is. This is his show, not your’s.”

Ward pushed himself up of the ground before shrugging. “When is it ever my show?” he asked philosophically and Skye rolled her eyes, because the last thing she needed to be reminded of when she was getting ready to put up with him was that he had taken orders from Garrett.

“Just making sure you know what’s what,” Skye said before turning to look at Ultron. He must have been improving at reading her face because she didn’t even need to tell him that she had the Ward situation covered. He just nodded and began to move along the corridors of the clinic towards where the doctor he was looking for had her workspace. The Maximoffs followed behind, but not before Pietro had given her a friendly jostle that told her that the moment she was in trouble, Wanda would be sending him to get her out of it.

Skye waited until all three of them were out of hearing range and she had double checked that there were no cameras anywhere. She knew that was the reason why Ultron had chosen that corridor to enter by, the only one from the roof without cameras to warn of the intrusion, but she wasn’t going to risk him overhearing the conversation.

“How did you find me?” she asked bluntly the moment she was sure that they weren't being overheard.

“I did a job with Coulson a few days ago and left Kara with them since they could help her more than me. She got in contact this morning to tell me that she had heard you had gone rogue but that everyone at SHIELD would clam up about you the moment they realised she was around.”

“That still doesn’t explain how you found me,” Skye said, though it did explain how he had known that she wasn’t with SHIELD any longer.

“HYDRA warned all assets to avoid a giant metal robot around the same time you went rogue. Didn’t take a genius.” At her glare, he shrugged. “I’m still on some mailing list and I’m not going to complain about free intel.”

“And it didn’t occur to you that I would like nothing better than to never ever have to see your face again?”

His face stuttered for a second before settling back into his cocky grin. “It occurred to me. I just didn’t care.”

Skye couldn’t help but snarl at him. Since she had found out that he was HYDRA, he had brought out the worst in her, the worst being the bit that reacted pretty much like her Dad when he was hurt. “Just stay out of my way.”

She spun on her heel and went to leave but his hand closed around her wrist and he was spinning her back to face him and she was not okay with that. She moved into the spin, throwing up her hand and letting out a small blast of energy, enough to knock him back into the wall but not enough to knock him off his feet. It was all the more impressive for the fact that she wanted to knock him into the wall hard enough to leave a dent in both but managed to keep her powers under control.

He looked at her for a moment, completely dumfounded. “Huh. So that’s what happened in Puerto Rico.” Then the smirk wormed its way back onto his face. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Skye scoffed. “Please. I have nothing to thank you for.”

“Not even superpowers to get a robot interested in you?”

Skye cut him a glare. “My powers are not why Ultron lets me stick around,” she shot back before mentally kicking herself. She should have gone with that, let Ward think that Ultron was using her for her powers. It would have at least reduced the amount of questions he had.

“Well, a guy might get jealous, what with the way he was looking at you,” Ward tossed out with fake casualness, brushing some dust off his leather jacket from where it had settled when Skye had slammed him into the wall.

“There’s nothing between me and Ultron to be jealous about,” she replied because just no. “But there’s nothing between me and anyone for you to be jealous about because you have no claim on me at all.”

“Please. You shot me. Three times. Like I’m going to hold a torch after that.” He tried to roll his eyes. Skye was less than convinced.

“Yeah? So why did you follow me halfway around the world.”

“Curiosity. Little Miss Coulson’s Pet off the leash? Like I was going to miss that.”

She growled at him again but it still didn’t so much as make him wince despite the fact that she could easily kill him with her new powers. That was a sobering thought; Ward had always been untouchable, whether he was a good guy or a bad guy. It messed with her head that there might be a possibility that she could take him down.

Then again, he had no reason to take her powers seriously. He had only seen her extremely controlled push which had barely hurt him when she had knocked him against the wall. While he had been in Puerto Rico, he had no way of knowing how much of that disaster was Skye. For all he knew, that little push might be all she was capable of when she wasn’t in the middle of a creepy alien city.

“You have no idea what I’m like off the leash,” she growls again and surprises herself by how true that was. The entire time she was with SHIELD she was trying desperately not to be her Dad, not to be the person who is smarter and sharper than everyone else and so always gets their way.

Huh. Apparently going undercover with the AI bent on destroying her father - and the world, just for good measure - was what would finally push her past her hang-ups on acting like him. Sure, she had done the witticisms and the banter but she had never done the egocentricity and the manipulations that made her Dad a dangerous man even without the Iron man suits.

“Exactly.” There was that smirk again and that, that was why Skye didn’t believe him when he said that he didn’t still care for her. “But I’m looking forward to finding out.”

Skye scoffed again, turning and walking away. She wasn’t so much of a fool that she didn’t think that Ward had an ulterior motive but, at least for the moment, there was nothing that she could really do about that. Maybe she could ask Ultron to dump him but she had a sneaking suspicion that, in order to do that, she would have to be really, really pissed at Ward to convince her brother and Ward would just be killed anyway.

She might not like him but she consoled herself with the fact that at least she was better than him and wouldn’t just up and murder people.

It didn’t take Skye very long to find where Ultron and the Maximoff twins had gotten to, even with the amount of effort she had to put into very emphatically not noticing that Ward had caught up to her and was following a few paces behind. She refused to give him the satisfaction of reacting badly to having him at her back, and so she soothed herself with the thought that if he tried anything then Ultron would make sure that he lived to regret doing so.

It only took Skye a few seconds on entering the room to notice that the doctor Ultron had come to find had the distinctive blue crystals in her eyes that were on record as being present in those under Loki’s control during the Battle of New York. More to the point, Ultron had produced the scepter from somewhere, probably brought to the main him by another one of the bodies he possessed.

Skye felt physically ill upon seeing it. She had seen photos of the thing in various SHIELD files but it was the first time that she had been in the same room as the weapon that had killed DC. Quite apart from the quick factor of mind control, Skye couldn't help but see blood on it, even though it must have been long since cleaned. Coulson was one of the people she cared most about in the world; she didn’t want to think about him being dead, even if it had happened before she had met him.

Her blood quickened at the sight, rushing through her veins and she had a strange ringing in her ears unlike anything she had ever heard before. Except it was familiar too, and it took her a second to realise that it was almost singing, a musical hum echoing in her mind. She had never heard it and yet, the moment she realised that it was familiar, though she would still swear that she had never heard it before. Maybe it was like deja vu, or something that she had heard in a previous life

“Skye,” Ultron said, turning slightly, finally giving her the impetus to drag her eyes away from the scepter. “Have you met Dr Helen Cho?”

Skye hadn’t, though she knew who the woman was. She knew most of the people who were even tangentially associated with the Avengers, a self-defence mechanism to know who was more likely to notice any similarities between her and her Dad. She shook her head.

“Well, Dr Cho has kindly volunteered to help us move forward with our plans,” Ultron said.

Skye frowned slightly. It wasn’t an introduction but she figured out why seconds later, when Dr Cho moved slightly and Skye got a chance to see the blue crystals in her eyes. She was under the control of the scepter. No wonder Ultron hadn’t introduced them; it wouldn’t make any difference.

“Well now,” came an annoyingly bemused voice from behind her. “Isn’t that something.”

Skye really, really wanted to punch Ward. Just because there wasn’t anything they could do about it didn’t mean that they should revel in the fact that someone else was being mind controlled. Ward really needed to learn the difference between being a badass and being a jerk. The poor woman was being mind controlled. She was being forced to do something so completely beyond her ethics that her mind had to be literally dragged into submission. That was not something to be bemused about.

Then again, it was hardly the worst of Ward’s crimes.

“Mind control?” she asked, trying to keep her voice as level as possible. “I would have thought you saw plenty of that with HYDRA. Wasn’t your new girlfriend programed by Whitehall?”

Ward’s entire body twitched. “That’s none of your business.”

“Fantastic. Then leave me the hell alone.” She began to pace, catching sight of the Maximoffs out of the corner of her eye. The both of them were watching her, and Skye wasn’t sure which expression was the more interesting. Wanda was watching her as though she was trying to see into her soul, and failing. Pietro looked as though he was settling in to watch a boxing match, and he was rooting for her.

“Come on, Skye. Don’t you want someone here watching your back?” he asked, the smug bastard.

“I have someone watching my back,” she snapped. “Ultron. And I trust him a hell of a lot more than you.”

The silence stretches. In the background, Dr Cho is working hard, unable to stop even if she were aware enough to try. Ward is looking at her as though he had never seen her before, and the Maximoffs are staring at her too. Skye doubts Ultron had told the twins how she was connected to him, and she knew Ward didn’t know. It was almost certainly very, very strange from an outside perspective.

“Mr Ward,” Ultron said, his voice always intimidating thanks to the slight mechanical echo. “The lady would like you to leave her alone. So while your presence is tolerated, I’m going to ensure that you respect her wishes.”

The look on Ward’s face was priceless. It was confusion and being creeped out with an edge of fear. Skye couldn’t help but feel warm and fuzzy as her brother totally put down the creep who had been following her around. It was practically like a scene out of a teen movie.

“Well, if we’re going to be here awhile, I’m heading out to get food.” She turned to Utron. “You might be able to run on electricity, but the rest of us don’t.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Pietro, stepping forward. “Stretch the legs, you know.”

Ultron looked at him then back at Skye. “You will need to be the one to understand the concept of keeping a low profile.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” she said, bemused and began to walk away, trusting that Pietro would follow. Despite the fact that he was the fastest person in the world, he didn’t catch her until she was pretty much out of the building. She suspected that his twin didn’t want him out and about without her watching his back.

“Is she older that you?” Skye asked as he fell into step beside her crossing the lobby.

“Twelve minutes younger,” he said, voice warm with amusement.

“I’m sorry,” Skye said solemnly. “I’m afraid you may have to put up with her for the rest of your life.”

Pietro laughed as he flashed ahead of her to hold open the door. She stopped, quirking her head in amusement. He looked slightly embarrassed. “Sorkovia is not the best place to live but we can be polite, if a little old fashioned.”

Fair enough. “I’m just not exactly used to politeness. Friendliness, sure, but it was always far more… relaxed.”

He cocked his head as he looked at her. “You will not take offense if I am more relaxed?”

Skye considered it. “Nah.”

The change was immediate. Pietro’s entire body went more pliant, his stride lengthening to a swagger. Without the tension, Skye dropped a couple of years off her estimate of his age. She had thought he was in his early thirties but, when relaxed, he actually looked like her was closer to her age. Huh.

“Why did you decided you come along?” Skye asked, curious. “I’m happy for the company but I would have thought that you would have wanted to be with your sister.”

He looked at her with a look Skye had come to know well: he was trying to decide if he could trust her. The answer must have been yes, because he grinned sheepishly. “This is the first time I’ve been out of Sorkovia. I wanted to see what it was like.”

Aww. Skye couldn’t help but leaned in slightly, as though telling a secret. “The first time I was out of the country was to South America, the middle of the jungle. The mission went wrong but the place was amazing.”

He grinned down at her, then looked puzzled. “Mission?”

Skye shrugged. “I used to be a SHIELD agent.”

“HYDRA?” and that was an edge to his voice, even though he had been the one to volunteer for HYDRA’s experiments. She had seen what little of the reports the Avengers had recovered from the fortress; she got it.

She snorted. “God, no. Loathe them.”

“Then why did you quit?”

She looked at him. “You don’t believe that SHIELD is really gone.”

It was his turn to snort. “No. Perhaps I’m a paranoid, but not even a little.”

Skye laughed but didn’t bother to confirm it. “I left to spend time with my brother,” she replied to the original questions.

And, just like that, Pietro perked up. For a second, Skye thought that it was giving him personal information, then he slung an arm around her shoulder and a full-on grin spread across his face. “Family is important, yes?”

Skye felt as though she had been punched in the heart. Well, her family was an AI who was planning on destroying all of humanity, a megalomaniac with a suit that he was rationalising as not being a weapon, an air force colonel who must have a screw loose since he actually liked the megalomaniac and the megalomaniac’s uber-efficient but awesome girlfriend. But then she thought of DC, of Fitz and of Simmons. Of the hours spent training with may. The undisguised lust with which Mack looked at Lola, Hunter’s complete disregard of protocol and Bobbi’s never-ending frustration with her ex.

 _Trip_.

“Yeah. Family’s important.” She must have been slightly choked up because Pietro put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Sorry… Another of my brothers didn’t make it through our last mission.” It was even true, from a certain perspective.

Seconds later, she was being pulled in for an amazing hug. It was warm and comforting and even though Skye didn’t have much experience with hugs she could still tell that she would have to search far and wide for another just as good. For a second, Skye couldn’t help but hold herself stiffly. She didn’t have the experience and she barely knew Pietro. Then she relaxed and let him hold her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “No one should have to lose a sibling.”

Skye’s stomach growled. They both froze for a second, and then broke down laughing. She pulled away from the hug, eyes watering both from nearly crying and from laughing. “I guess we should go find a supermarket, or something.”

“What’s the rush? In my experience, the sciency-stuff takes a long time. Why not go have a proper meal?”

Skye laughed again. “I’m sorry, I’m just enjoying the irony of a speedster telling me to slow down.”

“Hey, I know all about speed. I could zip around, get everything done quickly, but usually its better to go at the same speed as everyone else. You miss things otherwise. Sights, smells, other people.”

Skye wiped her face. “Okay, okay, you sold me on it. Where do you want to go?”

He lit up even further. “I want to try some Korean food.”

“Like what?”

He gave her a dry look. “You are overestimating the amount of foreign knowledge Sorkovian street kids have.”

Well, that made Skye feel awful. “Well, I’ve always wanted to try a seafood hotpot,” she said.

“I think we a seafood sometimes, with our parents.” He smiled down at her. “I think I should like that.”

“Okay. Since I got to choose the food, you get to chose the restaurant while I scare us up some money.”

He frowned. “Ultron did not give you any? He paid the arms dealer billions.”

Skye laughed. “Really? Well, no. I do have some credit cards but I would much rather get some cash. Much harder to trace. It isn’t the amount of money that’s an issue.”

“Is that likely to be a problem? Being tracked, I mean.” asked the Sorkovian, who had probably never owned a credit card in his life.

“When going up against Tony Stark? Yes. Absolutely, yes.”

Pietro seemed to accept that. “Well then. Shall we find a bank?”

They found a bank and, while the cashier was clearly dubious about dispensing cash to two young adults who didn’t have passports, the amount of money in Skye’s non-Stark bank account made her eyes bulge and she quickly made the decision that it was better not to lose their business. Clearly, Ultron had been having fun with money, Skye thought as they casually strolled out of the bank.

“You do official very well,” Pietro said with a smirk.

“Hello, former SHIELD agent. You should see my intimidating.”

“Pfff.” Pietro waved her boast away. “My sister literally drags up people’s worst fears. It takes a lot to impress me.”

Skye couldn’t help the laugh. “Yeah, yeah, tough guy. Just pick a restaurant before I faint with hunger.”

“There is no hurry. If that should happen, I would be happy to carry you, as per the tradition of Sarkovian politeness.”

“Sarkovian politeness, huh? Are you sure you didn’t just pick that up from a romance novel?”

He winked at her. “Who am I to complain if the two coincide?”

Yeah, Skye had known a few guys like him in her time: cocky, swagger-y and always cheeky. She could safely say that she had never liked any of them half as much as she liked Pietro. Despite siding with Ultron, he seemed like a good guy, the kind who would absolutely look after his sister no matter what. It was hard to dislike a guy like that.

Suddenly, Pietro grabbed her arm and dragged her a few steps into a side street. The restaurant that he had spotted had a wooden facade and a sleek banner in Korean that showed something that must be a hotpot. It was a matter of minutes before their food was in front of them. Pietro was practically jumping in excitement as they waited for it to warm up.

Skye couldn’t help laughing at him, but it was good natured. “You are very good for the chef’s ego.”

Pietro didn’t look put out by that at all. “From the smell, he deserves it,” he replied, causing Skye to laugh again.

It was… nice to be able to relax a little, particularly with another person. It had been a few weeks since she had left the Playground and she had really only seen her Dad in that time, and he wasn’t someone that re relaxed with. She hadn’t realised how lonely she was until she was joking around with another person, enjoying the food and sights of another country. It made her feel better, when she hadn’t even known that she was feeling sad.

“Don’t you like it?” Pietro asked, concerned, and Skye let a smile slip onto her face.

“Just lost in my thoughts, I guess.” She helped herself from the pan on the burner in the middle of the table. “Wow. That’s really good.”

Pietro grinned over at her in approval. “Didn’t think you’d be one of those prissy girls who find seafood gross.”

“It’s not my favourite food but it is pretty good,” she said. “There’s this place in LA, you’d love-” She cut herself off remembering that Pietro had sided with Ultron, and if Ultron got his way  then no one would be visiting anywhere. “Never mind.”

Pietro looked at her, puzzled, then shrugged it off. “Maybe I’ll go there one day.”

It was Skye’s turn to look confused. “What are you talking about?”

“After Ultron has destroyed the Avengers, I might visit LA,” he said.

Oh.

Oh, wow.

Pietro didn’t know. And if Pietro didn’t know, it was a fair bet that Wanda wasn’t aware either. They thought that Ultron’s primary goal was to destroy the Avengers, that was why they were helping him. They didn’t know that they were actually helping to end the human race, possibly hadn’t even considered he might have another agenda, being used to having Wanda’s abilities to protect themselves.

“Pietro,” Skye, said throat tight. It probably wasn’t but she couldn’t not telling him, before he did something he couldn’t come back from. “Ultron isn’t trying to destroy the Avengers.”

“Of course he is, we got the metal and are building him a body-”

“He’s trying to destroy the human race!” Skye burst out, glad that they were up the back of the restaurant where no one was likely to overhead.

Pietro shook his head, almost unconsciously. “No. No, you don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s not true. I mean, if it were, why would you-”

“I’m gathering intelligence so that he can be stopped,” Skye said, as gently as possible. “He can’t be allowed to succeed.”

Pietro looked as though she had punched him in the gut. She knew that look, must have worn it herself when Ward had proved to be HYDRA. “You are going to betray us?” he said angrily.

“I’m going to do my best to stop more people from getting hurt. Stop more orphans from being made,” she said, pushing down the queesiness when he flinched at her words. “I’m not here to hurt you, Pietro. Just the opposite. I’m here to make sure that you and your sister get out of this okay.”

At the mention of Wanda, he went very still. “She’s still back there.”

For a second, Skye thought that he was going to superspeed back, try to outrun Ultron but he caught himself. He froze, clearly thinking through the likely ways that was going to go. None of the likely scenarios ended well, and he knew it. That was good that he could stop himself, could think it through. That had taken Skye a long time to learn.

He turned back to her. “You will help me get her out,” he said, face tight.

There were many answers that she could give. That she would try, that it might not be possible. That was what a smart agent would do, rather than get his hopes up. But, once, Skye had turned down her Dad’s money and lived in a van so that she could do what she believed in. Skye was intelligent, yes, but that wasn’t the same thing as smart.

“Of course.”

The tension flowed out of him and he slumped back down into his seat. “So, you’re still SHIELD.”

“No. I officially quit.” At his look of disbelief. “Ultron is everywhere. There is not making it appear so that could fool him. The only way to make it convincing was to actually resign. It was all in.”

Slowly, some of the previous warmth seeped back into his eyes. “You are a good person, Quake.”

Skye felt the small, sad smile slip onto her face. “Maybe wait until after we’ve rescued your sister, ideally without blowing my cover.”

“It’s a, how do you say it? Plan.” Then he smiled again. “Even though you were not straight with me, I am glad to be working with you.”

Skye grinned. “You know what? I’m glad to be working with you too, Pietro. Now, let’s go be heroes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clarify: yes, Coulson deliberately had agents talk about Skye going rogue where Kara would hear it, knowing that it would get back to Ward. He did learn from Fury, after all.


	5. I'm Still Fighting For Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Skye and Pietro argue, Wanda is not a damsel in distress, Tony is confused and really wierd stuff goes down.

“This is a terrible idea. Why did I agree to this?” Skye grumbled.

Pietro looked at her in outrage. “What do you mean ‘this is a terrible idea’? You thought of it!”

“You were meant to come up with something better!”

The Sokovian stared at her like she was insane. “I don’t know how to use a computer, let alone fake these proto-whatevers that your have been going on about.”

“IP protocols. They are literally the most basic internet thing ever. Also, that’s like the fifth time I’ve told you.”

“Well, I still don’t see how Ultron is not going to see this and see that we are up to something.”

Pietro began to pace the length of the very small room that they had rented for an hour. Skye had a pretty good idea what it was for, and Pietro had lived on the streets so she would be he wasn’t sheltered either. Then again, no one would ever think that the young couple hiring a room for an hour was actually trying to outsmart the smartest AI in the world.Yeah, they were sneaky like that.

“We don’t need him to not see,” Skye explained patiently. “All we’re doing is checking up on where the Avengers are up to. First, that will cause Ultron to focus slightly more on them. Second, it will totally tip Tony Stark off and get him to come charging in, guns blazing, and properly distract Ultron.”

Pietor stopped pacing to look at her incredulously. “That is the plan? It will never work.”

“It will work.”

“You just said it's a terrible idea!”

Skye stopped flicking her eyes back to the screen so that she could glare at him properly. “Yes. Its a terrible idea, a terrible idea that will still work.”

“My god,” Pietro said, burying his face into his hands. “I am not regretting this. If I tell myself that long enough, I might even begin to believe it.”

“Yeah? Well, I am long past denial. I am totally regretting this. You’re cocky and obnoxious and I’m trying to help you!”

Pietro through his hands up in exasperation. “You are a terrible know-it-all, acting as though you are always right-”

“I’m an agent! Of course I have more experience in these kinds of situations than you do.”

“Escaping from artificial intelligences?”

“Yes!” she yelled. Then: “No!”

Because Pietro had no clue how incredibly difficult it was to sneak out of a house where the security system is JARVIS. With the benefit of hindsight, it might have caused a decent amount of teenage angst.

“Well, which is it?”

“I was a hacker before I was an agent I certainly know better than you!” Something about the tone of her voice brought Skye up short. The familiarity… She had heard it before, but where? Then it hit her. That was the exact same tone, the exact same modulation as her Dad’s voice during one of their knock down, drag out screaming matches that had Uncle Rhodey - and Air Force colonel - running for cover.

She took a deep breath. She tried to calm herself down, to push the nasty comparison between her and her Dad out of her mind. “Look,” she said, trying to be as reasonable as possible. “I managed to convince Ultron that I was on his side, right? I can predict him, to a certain extent. We will get your sister out, I just wish that it didn’t mean putting ourselves in the Avenger’s firing line to do it.”

“Quake,” Pietro said. “We’re already there.”

 

Tony Stark liked to think that his paranoia had been proved justified many times over the previous years, so he whipped his phone right out when it played the sound of an air horn while he was somewhere over the north Atlantic.

The jet had been at Steve’s insistence, interfering busybody that he was, on the basis that it meant Tony could sleep on the way there. It was like the man did know him at all. Okay, so he may have collapsed for a few hours, but that was beside the point. he had been up for nearly half an hour already, trying to puzzle out what was going on with the internet, besides the usual. While they didn’t have a deadline, per se, Tony was taking the total extinction of the human race as a pretty unmovable deadline.

Dropping the tablet in favour of his phone, Tony frowned when he saw the notification that someone was trying to hack some of the Towers servers. It was a truth universally acknowledged, even by Tony, that security of the kind Stark Industries had courtesy of its owner was catnip for hackers. That meant that it was constantly getting bombarded, so he only got notifications if they got a decent way in.

It had never gone off before.

Tony quickly pulled up some diagnostics and felt his eyebrows rise. Whoever they were, they were very, very good. They had slipped past his defences effortlessly, stopping at just the right spot to trigger his alarms. They had then moved onto… deliberately failing with the rest of the security. It was subtle, but the flair, the creativity that the code showed had gotten them there pretty much dried up.

Interesting.

Then the code sort of rotated - it wouldn’t make any sense to someone not used to doing their hacking in three dimensions - and Tony felt his breath catch. He knew that little flourish to his core. He saw it every day, binary digits he had personally and carefully stenciled onto canvas and hung up in the corner his workstation at the Tower faced. Even Pepper didn’t know what the number meant, though she knew who they referred.

Coding had been one of the few activities that he and Skye had been able to agree on once her teenage years started. The day she had come up with those beautiful lines of code had been her first day back at the mansion after sleeping at Pepper’s for a few nights. Tony must be getting old because he couldn’t remember what the fight had been about and he used to list them all, front and backwards, with dates and - on occasion - times.

But that time, Skye had come into his workshop all of fifteen, gangly limbs and threadbare jeans and he had told her a thousand times that her jeans were too thin, that motor oil would soak all the way through to her skin. She had looked solemn but not unfriendly, just put a glass of water next to him as he ignored the epic hangover that was a constant companion at the times when Skye needed to not stay in the same building as him.

Yeah, Tony had always known that he had a heart. It had spent most of those years breaking.

That day, he had thanked her and managed to not say anything obnoxious. She had leaned over the computer and frowned for a few seconds until she figured out that he was halfway through hacking the Pentagon because what else was he meant to do when he was hung over? She had typed in a few lines of code and smirked challengingly at him. Tony hand typed in a few and the two competitive Starks had been off.

It had put his heart back together, just a little.

Skye was hacking into the Tower. Skye - who was with Ultron and who could hack anything - was messing about in the Tower’s server. Huh. Okay, maybe not huh, but he was trying to go back to the constantly hungover and high mess he had been once Skye had left for good and he had to confront the fact that he had become the one thing that he had never wanted to be: his father.

Actually, Skye hacking into the Tower made no sense whatsoever, because Tony knew that she was probably better than him and he was pretty sure that she was in and out of his files all the time. Once, he had made a deliberate calculation error in the new suit model, the kind that had first brought Pepper to his attention. When he had gone back into the file the next day, it had been corrected. So unless Pepper was secretly an expert hacker - which would be awesome but not probable - it was probably Skye not being ready to take over Stark Industries.

Query: why was Skye messing about where she had to know that he was watching?

Response: she was trying to get his attention.

Query: Course of action to take?

Response: continue being baffled. Reassess in five minutes.

Tony stared at the phone in bafflement. When the five minutes were up, he decided that he simply didn’t have the luxury of enough time to continue being baffled in. Crisis, fiasco, and all that. Worse: Skye, in danger and angry at him. So no more than five minutes of bafflement for him. As ever, he was going to have to be the brains of the operation (excluding Brucie, who deserved an operation of his own and Tony would totally give him whatever his awesome heart desired).

He knew he was at a distinct disadvantage. His daughter was the one nemesis he could never understand, never mind defeat. She was smart, knew all of his weaknesses all too well and had long since lost any compunction about using them against him. He was Iron Man, but that fact was of absolutely no use against Skye, whether in terms of mind games or - JARVIS forbid - in a fight. It didn’t matter what anyone thought of him, if he came up against Skye in a physical fight, he was surrendering.

Because he was Tony Stark, he honestly considered just asking, typing a message into the code. He thought better of it, not because she was the enemy, but because she wasn’t going to answer. He was all for being reckless, but that was just stupid. That was something that Justin Hammer might try. He might not know what she was up to, but he sure knew how to stop her.

He sent the instruction for the entire Tower to go dark.

Leaning back, Tony supposed that there were currently a whole bunch of SI employees who were cursing his name right at that moment but, frankly, he was too emotionally drained. Maybe he should have another nap. Not cause Capsicle had suggested it, mind. Just, you know, because.

The phone’s alarm went off again.

Tony swore quietly as he pulled up the display. Someone was hacking into one of the key SI plants out in LA. No prizes for guessing who. Okay, so that meant that whatever she was after wasn’t specifically located in the Towers servers. Interesting but Tony was feeling too old to deal with it, not that he would ever admit it aloud. He was forty-four, not old at all, but he had put his body through hell in the previous few years and he was starting to feel it. So he shut down those servers too.

He slumped back again, phone still in hand. He was just going to close his eyes for a few seconds. Not long, not long at all. Just… a… few…

The alarm went off again.

Tony’s glare at the phone was frozen when he saw what Skye was trying to hack: Pepper’s phone. Sure, there was lots of information there, but Skye loved Pepper and no matter how dark side she had gone, would never infringe on Pepper’s privacy that way. Granted, the possibility of seeing Tony’s sexts would probably help there. So.

Query: what is Skye up to?

Response: she wants Tony’s attention.

Query: why doesn’t she just call?

Response: she’s a supervillain and putting Tony off his game is a win for her.

Pepper was going to kill him if he so much as thought about turning off her phone, so that was out. Besides, if Skye was trying to get his attention, it didn’t really matter whether she could get any info off it, because that wasn’t her aim. Which meant that Tony had the time to do a bit of quick diagnostics to see… yep, she hadn’t hid her IP address, which led him to a server in a hotel in Seoul of all places.

Before he could think any better of it, he activated the camera in his phone and placed a video call to her IP address. Clearly Skye wanted him to have her location and wanted his attention, and Tony would very much like to know why. Besides, he was Tony Stark and that meant been reckless even when he was bone weary and wanted nothing more than for it all to be over.

“What are you up to?” he asked by way of greeting when the call connected.

“Stark,” she said and, yep, there was someone else there. Given the poor quality of the camera, it took Tony a few seconds to realise that it was the Sokovian speedster. And yet there was no Ultron there to taunt him. That probably meant something but Tony couldn't for the life of him figure out what.

"Why are you hacking into my systems... Quake?"

She smirked at him and, for a second, Tony thought it was his father's smirk. But no, it kicked up at the corners too much, there was a little too much humour in it for it to be Howard Stark's. No, that was his own smirk.

"Call me curious as to the security that you have there, Stark," she said, and it was odd to hear her sound almost like a stranger. Even when the two of them argued, they still were still family and they sounded like it. "Frankly, I'm not impressed."

"Does Ultron have you doing the hacking for him since he's so busy dealing with whoever's preventing him from taking control of the internet?"

For a moment, Skye's face froze but then it smoothed out. Too late: Tony had seen it. So, she hadn't known about that then. "Ultron's busy with other matters right now," she said smoothly and, wow, she had just sounded terrifyingly like Pepper then. He hadn't had a chance to ask Agent what she did for him when he had come to visit her at the Stark Ranch, but he was going to have to remedy that soon.

If Tony found out that Skye was SHIELD's Pepper, he wasn't sure if he was going to laugh or cry.

"So you are taking the initiative? Huh, I guess that murderous robots are far more lenient employers than I thought. Wait, are you employees? Minions, that's a better words. I didn't know that murderous AIs allowed their minions so much freedom.”

“My god,” the Sokovian muttered. “Do you never shut up?”

“No,” Skye beat him to it. “He never, ever shuts up. At all. Ever. Why do you think so many people want to kill him?”

“My winning personality?” Tony suggested and, yep, had had already known that Pepper had taught her that disapproving glare.

“Only if you keep it locked up in one of your vaults,” she said and it was snarky, because that was practically a requirement for being a Stark, but it was far less harsh that some of the things she had said to him over the years. Tony was pretty much ready to give up guessing what was going on there.

“Well, got to keep it somewhere that the unwashed masses can’t get at it,” he said, not really paying attention. “Gotta say, those don’t really look like Dr Cho’s digs.”

The speedster froze but Skye barely reacted. “I take it you’re on your way.” She sounded almost… pleased.

“Not me, not Brucie, but the others,” he said. “I guess I’ll ask again: what are you playing at, Skye?”

The Maximoff reacted to Tony using her first name but Skye didn’t. “Trust me,” she said instead. “This is no game.”

For once, Tony managed to actually see where he had gone wrong and not make it worse. “Fine, my bad. What are you planning?”

She smiled and Tony was forcibly reminded of the fact that she was his daughter. As Thor would say, a formidable opponent indeed. He had been trying to keep it off his mind that she was on the other side, had managed it even after admitting to Clint that she was his daughter. But the truth was that he was terrified, terrified that even if everything went swimmingly and they took Ultron down it still wouldn’t be enough.

Because, for now, he could try to convince himself that Skye was a supervillain out of some twisted sense of sympathy for Ultron - oh god, don’t think of that - but he might not have that luxury. Someday, he might have to attempt to get Thor drunk so that the two of them could commiserate over having close family members go dark side. But even Thor wouldn’t get it. Loki was his brother, his younger brother, but it still wasn’t his fault, at least not the way the Asguardian thought.

Clint would get it though, even though he was clearly the kind of father that Tony could never be, the bastard. Tony had seen him with his kids, had felt that hot bile because he had never had that but he had also never given it to the one person who deserved it above all others. Skye... Tony hated how estranged they were and always hoped that there would be some way that they could reconcile, but they never quite managed it. It was as though every time they sat down to give it a try, it always devolved back into a screaming match.

"My plans aren't any of your business," she said, but there was a smile on her face. It was odd, Tony had to admit, that this was the most civil they had been to each other for years.

"Hey, you're the one poking about in my stuff," he said without rancour. He wondered if it was the fact that they had witness who, presumably, didn't know that they were related that was making the difference in how the two of them normally acted.

"I was," she agreed, and that was suspicious. "Thank you for taking the bait."

Then, with a wink, she was gone and Tony was left staring at a 'call ended' notification and wondering what had just happened. He hadn't even known she was capable of winking and they she went and dropped it on him right there? Oh, she was totally up to something.

Tony was a little bit proud. Even if she was working for Ultron. But not really. Possibly.

He wondered if he made Pepper's head hurt that much. If he did, he was going to have to apologise profusely. Not because he was sorry, per se, but because it seemed like the thing to do. Of course, Pepper being incredibly smart, would wonder what had brought it all on and would pry it out of him that he had managed to get his daughter to go dark side. So he would keep that to himself.

At least until he had figured out what was going on.

 

The moment she terminated the video call with her Dad, Skye lost the smile. "The Avengers will be here soon," she said, shutting the laptop and shoving it in the backpack they had also picked up. The pack had everything that the twins might need in a foreign country, all ready for them. "We need to get back to the lad right now."

Suddenly, Pietro was swooping her up bridal style. "I cannot do right now, but I can do pretty fast."

"Wait," she said.

He looked at her in bemused annoyance. "Which is it? Now, or wait?"

"More haste and less speed," she said loftily. It was one of the things that Pepper had told her often enough when she was younger - with a smile on her face, of course - and it was nice to be able to return the favour to someone else.

Clearly it was something that Pietro had been told before - by Wanda, Skye suspected - because he looked at her flatly. "What, then?"

“Promise me you’ll be careful,” she said. She really did like the Sokovian. “I know that you’ll have Wanda with you to keep you in line but still. Promise me.”

He smiled, eyes warming. “I promise.” Then he jostled her a little, just to ruin the sense of calm. “I know better than to ask that of you.”

“Cheeky,” she said raising an eyebrow, another trick learned from the incomparable Ms Potts. “You met me less than a day ago.”

“Ah, but what a day!” He laugh. “Just think of all the days to come, when you have finished playing lacked to Ultron.”

Skye felt a twinge of regret. She wasn’t sure what she would be doing when all was said and done, but it would probably be something along the lines of rejoining SHIELD. She supposed that she couldn’t stay there eventually, that at some point Pepper would guilt trip her about her responsibilities to Stark Industries, probably in the next few years. After all, they had an agreement that, when Skye turned thirty, she would finally allow Tony to step down as chief owner of Stark Industries. Skye would have the responsibilities and most of the money; her Dad would be able to play in R&D to his heart’s content.

So she said: “I will probably go back to SHIELD.”

His face fell a little but he rallied admirably. “Just think about it. You, me and Wanda. They would never be able to stop us. Though I vote we leave the douchbag behind.”

There was a beat as Skye processed the fact that Pietro knew the word, then she burst out laughing. “It would probably be more accurate to say that the world would never know what hit them.”

Pietro looked mock-affronted. “If they do, then I’m getting slow. And old. But mostly slow.”

Skye sniggered. “Stop making me laugh, this is serious. We need to get back and get Wanda out of there. I did think that we would have a little more time before the Avengers show up and distract Ultron but there’s no changing that now. We have to,” she grimaced, “move fast. There’s so much that I need to tell you, about staying under the radar but we just don’t have the time. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.”

He jostled her slightly. “You have already done more than enough. You have stopped us from doing something that we would regret, and helped us enough that we can start a new life. Thank you. Thank you. This is more kindness than we have ever been shown before. Do not worry about what we could not do, for you have done more than enough.”

Skye blinked back the dampness in her eyes. Her teenage years hadn’t been fun, it was true, but at the time when she had had everything she had ever needed except a father she got along with, her Dad’s designs had already rendered Pietro an orphan. Oh god, he was going to hate her when he found out, and Skye couldn’t blame him. Though she had never done anything herself, she was feeling pretty bad anyway.

“Pietro-”

“Hush,” he said, placing a finger on her lips. “Do not profess your everlasting love to me, for we shall see each other again.” He gazed soulfully into her eyes.

And just like that, the guilt was gone. “You’re terrible,” she groaned.

“So my sister tells me,” he agreed. “May we go now or will you continue nagging like a mother hen?”

Skye bowed to the inevitable.

 

“Cozy,” Ward commented from the bench where he was sitting and reading a newspaper. A Korean newspaper, the show-off. How he had known which corner they were going to stop around so as not to draw attention, Skye had no idea. She really, really hoped that he hadn’t bugged them or something. That was totally something the creepy stalker would do. The creepy stalker who didn’t seem at all jealous of the fact that she was currently in Pietro’s arms. Suspicious.

Ward not being jealous, that is, not her being in Pietro’s arms. It wasn't that she was paranoid about Ward being up to something, but he was totally up to something.

Pietro let her down without Skye even having to ask, because he was awesome. “You’re just jealous no one carries you around.”

Ward pulled one corner of the newspaper towards him so he could see Pietro over it. He looked the Sokovian up and down before letting the paper spring back up into place. “He couldn’t lift me.”

“Absolutely not,” Pietro agreed before Skye could jump in to defend his manliness. When she turned to look at him incredulously, he just shrugged. Clearly he wasn’t one for macho man stand off. Actually, that made a lot of sense: from what little Skye had read of Sokovia, there were enough tough guys around that Pietro wouldn’t have wanted to get into pissing contests, particularly if he hadn’t had powers at the time.

“Whatever,” Skye huffed, moving past Ward to head towards the door. He didn’t deserve any more attention than she had to give him, even if he was up to something. They were on a clock after all, even if they couldn’t give any indication of it.

“Skye,” he calls, and she shouldn’t stop, really, because he doesn't deserve it and they both know that he doesn't deserve it but she does anyway. Not even she could say why. She doesn;t turn, though. She has that small victory. “I don’t know why you’d throw in your lot with Ultron of all people, but you need to be careful. He isn’t human; he doesn’t have emotions the way we do.”

Still Skye doesn’t turn. “The kind that would stop him from stabbing me in the back. That’s a bit rich coming from you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says and he sounds almost weary. “I know. It’s not a threat, or a ploy. Its an honest warning. Watch your back.”

“You’re not going to ask if I know what I’m doing?” she asks before she can stop herself, turning.

He smiles, and it's one she has never seen before. Its knowing and honestly amused, as though there’s some big secret just out of her reach. “Oh, I think you know what you’re doing far better than anyone has ever given you credit for.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped and she’s angry, mostly because she knows it's not an insult. Its a compliment and she’s not sure that she can stand being complemented by Ward without trying to put a bullet in him. Again. Also, that sounded ominously like he knew that she was actually there to stop Ultron.

“Just that you’re very good at palling up with people who are meant to be your enemies.” Skye knows that he’s talking about when she was a mole for the Rising Tide inside the team but there’s something else there, something in his eyes, and she can’t help but feel that there’s something else going on that she knows nothing about.

“Oh, screw you, Ward,” she says. Its not as clever or snarky as a lot of the things that her Dad says but it gets the point across and it was so unbelievably freeing. No room for misunderstanding, on either of their parts.

He chuckles but doesn’t come back with the obvious answer of ‘whenever you want’, or words to that effect. Once again: suspicious. “I hope that you’re enjoying your walk on the dark side, Skye,” he said instead, going back to his newspaper and leaving her with no option but to stomp off unless she wanted to rip it from his hands, and she refused to give him the satisfaction.

Pietro caught up with her in the building’s lobby. Ultron must have had Dr Cho give some excuse as to why they were all there because they didn’t get so much as a second look, even by the security guard who waved them through. The two of them were silent in the public place, waiting until they were in the otherwise empty elevator before talking.

“What happened there?” Pietro asked. Not too long ago, Skye would have thought he was nonchalant, but SHIELD training had taught her to spot a front better than that.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said but he wouldn’t be deterred.

“Really? Because I wasn’t sure if you were about to kill him or - what’s the term? - jump his bones.”

Skye made a noise of protest. “I wouldn’t-”

“Uh huh,” he interrupted, the disbelief clear in his voice. “Whatever. The guy is annoying but he does seem to care for your safety.”

“Its a trick,” she tells him darkly before muttering, “it’s always a trick.”

“Well, you will have to come find me, once this is all over, or I’ll come find you. Then you can tell me that story,” he said, grinning at her like she was a small puppy that thought it was scary.

“We’ll see,” she says, because plans are a difficult thing to make when so much was changing. She’s saved from having to elaborate any further by the ding of the elevator arriving and the doors slid open to reveal Wanda waiting there. “Wow, you’re good,” Skye says before seeing the surprise on Wanda’s face.

“We need to get out of here,” she says, pushing into the elevator. Skye registers that she’s panting and that Ultron is yeeling somewhere behind her.

Skye moves out of the elevator fast, being careful to bump into Wanda so she can whisper into her ear. “Take the stairs. He might be able to stop the elevator.”

She wasn’t sure how Wanda had figured it out, but she gave the other woman credit: girl knew what she was about. Behind her, Skye could hear Pietro stuttering, trying to catch up with what was going on and she couldn’t help a little grin. She liked Pietro but it was clear that Wanda was very much the sharper of the two.

The other woman growled impatiently. “Pietro! We must go.” She cut a glance to Skye, a frown appearing. “I do not know what game you are playing, nor what your motives are, but you are welcome to come.”

Skye felt a small smile slip onto her face. “You’re only offering because you know I won’t accept.”

“That’s not why I offered. But you are somewhat right: I do not think that you will accept.”

Skye had only briefly scanned Wanda’s file when the Avengers had first encountered the Maximoffs at the HYDRA base, but it occurred to her that there was a lot that was unclear about her powers. If someone had told the earthshaker at that particular moment that Wanda could see the future, she would have doubted them. She felt as though the other woman could see into her very soul.

“I have other things to do,” she said carefully, “But thank you.”

Wanda nodded. “Pietro, we must go,” she said, reaching behind Skye to grab her brother, dragging him away. The speedster shot a look over his shoulder, a look that said goodbye even though they didn’t have time to say it. As they got further away, Skye could hear Wanda berating her brother. “Did you really think that I would need to be rescued…”

Skye chuckled as Wanda’s voice faded away, probably because they were entering a stairwell or had turned a corner. For most of her life, Skye hadn’t had any siblings and she had always wanted someone who would face the world - and their Dad - by her side. They might have had a pretty bad life but the Maximoffs had always had something that no amount of money had been able to buy Skye.

Deeper in the labs, Skye could hear her brother raging.

She took a deep breath, mentally reviewing all the lessons that May had taught her, forcing her heartbeat under control. She didn’t know if Ultron could monitor that kind of thing but she also didn’t want to take any chances. She had gone into the whole situation with her eyes open but she was even more invested in stopping her brother than ever. She knew what he had planned, suspected that he intended to spare her in some way, possibly by trying to upload her into a body in some way.

If an AI could go mad, there was no doubt that Ultron had. She knew it intellectually, but she was having trouble really feeling it.

She found him in the lab, raging. She had to bite back a gasp when she saw that Dr Cho was slumped over by one wall, a chucking missing from her chest. The agent in Skye thought ‘some kind of energy weapon’. The person in her babbled ‘that poor woman’ hysterically, sounding a lot like Jemma for some reason. She knew that he was an AI, she really did, but it was very hard to feel it when he reacted with the same anger a person would.

“Ultron,” she said, drawing his attention to her. He calmed slightly, just seeing her, and Skye filed that thought away and ignored that warm spark in her chest. That wasn’t actual feeling, she told herself, it was just her projecting years of wanting a sibling. If she told herself that enough, she might even believe it. “The Avengers are on there way.”

“Oh, wonderful. That’s just great. How do they do their timing? Really, I want to know because it’s always just the worst.” Ultron began pacing, but at least he was no longer throwing things.

“Food for thought,” Skye said. “For now, we need to get out of here. I don’t know how far out they are, but it can’t be far.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Two of his non-primary units moved to pick up the cradle but Skye stopped them.

“Wait. Can I… can I see?”

There was a moment of silence and then, quietly and without any of his previous anger, Ultron replied: “Of course.”

With no small amount of trepidation, Skye moved slowly towards the device. She had seen schematics that Dr Cho - still trying desperately to breath through what must be a punctured lung - had sent to her Dad, a scientist’s version of boasting. She had never paid it much attention, though. That sort of thing had never really interested Skye, and still didn’t, not really. What interested her was the body inside.

It didn’t look like Ultron. It was an inane thought, because Ultron wasn’t his body, he was made of binary code and whatever it was that her Dad and Dr Banner had copied from the scepter. What he used as his body wasn’t even his body, because he had many and they were all interchangeable. Ultron was her brother but he was of a completely different breed to her, and he could change or destroy bodies almost at will. His physical presence wasn’t measure in a body but in a multitude of bodies.

The second thing that Skye noticed was the gem.

It was a different colour and embedded in the head of her brother’s new body, but Skye recognised the gem from Loki’s sceptor immediately, even though she couldn’t have said how. That same nausea that had bubbled up when she had seen it earlier returned and she had to steel her stomach. It wasn’t just the fact that it had been part of the thing that had killed DC once, it was the very idea of what it could do, what it might allow Ultron to do.

Could he influence people? Could he control them? And, if he could, would he have to touch them, at the scepter had? Skye had so many questions, and she doubted that the answers would be all that reassuring. She had not had good experience with mind control, not after Mack and she remembered Lorelei all too well. No one should have that kind of power over another.

And to think that such awful, awful power was contained in such a small stone…

Later, Skye wouldn’t be able to explain what had prompted her to do it. It hadn’t even been a conscious thought, to lean down into the cradle. There had been no purpose, and she would have thought that her distaste for the stone would have meant her instincts were to run as far and as fast as she could in the opposite direction. It made no sense then that she leaned forward and let her fingers lightly brush the stone.

The world stopped.

Skye had only a moment, but a moment that seemed to stretch on into infinity, to realise what she had done. In that moment, a dozen thoughts tried to crowd their way into her mind, Why had she done that? It was stupid. Who knew what it could do to her. It was dangerous. How could she be so stupid. It might even take over her mind.

Then she saw infinity.

There was no other word to describe it. It wasn’t like in movies and TV shows, where they showed a spiralling shot of space to convey the vastness of the universe. What Skye saw… was everything. She could see everything in the universe, from the smallest stone to the largest supernova. She saw so much that she couldn’t make sense of a single frame of it but she felt… incomplete. Like there were parts of her missing that she hadn’t known until she touched the stone.

But she also understood what Selvig had spoken of, in the SHIELD debriefs that Skye wasn’t meant to have access to. There was clarity in the information overload, a sharpness that made the world without the stone seem pale and lifeless and, above all, unreal. That feeling, that was what had taken over Selvig’s mind, Barton’s mind, Dr Cho’s mind. She could feel it, could understand what it would feel like for it to curl around her consciousness, for it to seep in and direct her actions. She got the mindless bliss of it.

But it didn’t try to take her over.

Instead, it… purred. Like a well-fed cat, it twined itself around her mind like the legs of a cat’s owner, without ever once getting underfoot. It was as though it was tell her that it was there, that she had done her job well, and it would deign to be petted in a few minutes time. There was no malice there, no intention to take her over but she could see how, but it didn’t frighten her. She got this, got it to her bones and it was as though her whole soul was singing…

Yes.

What took her so long?

She should have gone after the stone the moment she had seen the footage of the Battle of New York. HYDRA should never have had it. Not only were they not worthy, they did not know what it was they had possessed. Distantly, Skye thought that she didn’t either but that didn’t matter at that moment. All that mattered was the whole universe spread out inside her mind, and the… vibrations.

The new senses that her powers had provided were still new enough to be slightly strange but she could tell that this was what they were intended for. All the vibrations, all the quakes, all the resonance that she had been feeling, hearing, seeing and tasting had been to one purpose: so that she could be there, touch that stone, and feel what they were like. What they was, she wasn’t sure for an instant, before the infinity she was seeing threw up an image.

Six stones, all different colours. The power in them, each of them, was enough to destroy planets and bring empires to their knees. But together, as the stones longed to be…

They could destroy the universe.

Skye - that was her name, she mustn’t forget it, given the swirling universe around her - sent out a low pulse of vibration, a frequency no man-made machine would ever register. It was the right frequency for the stones and, like an echo, she felt the response. Each of the five resonances were subtly different - different stones, different types? - but they came back and

Skye knew that she could follow the trail. She could head off in a direction, send out a pulse whenever she got lost and gather them all. Some were far, so very far away. Galaxies away. But there was one in her hand, and another. On Earth, but not on Earth, and she didn’t understand what that was about either but she would. She had time, she could-

The building rumbled, and Skye’s hand slipped from the stone.

She staggered away, despite Ultron’s worried hand reaching out to steady her. No time seemed to have passed, but Skye felt as though it had been decades. Then the feeling fell away and she remembered that she needed to breath, that she was a human and that she wasn’t a stone. She needed to breath, and her heart needed to beat. She was human.

She was no tool for the stone to use.

She turned to… She didn’t know. To warn Ultron, to beg him to not enter a body with the stone in it. To tell him that it was almost alive, that there was something in there. That it… wanted. But then she remembered: the stone had been the blueprint. She didn’t think that the stone was Ultron, not precisely, but that they… resonated. What the stone wanted vibrated within the AI, pushed him in ways he didn’t realise.

And.

And, if Skye could find the others that it so desperately wanted to be reunited with…

Ultron probably wouldn’t hurt her. Leaving aside that he thought of her as his little big sister, that she was the only ally that he trusted, the stone needed her alive and relatively safe. Skye wondered whether Ultron was capable of doing something that the stone didn’t want.

The building shook and, for a split second, Skye thought she had lost control of her powers. Then the shaking stopped and she realised that it had been an explosion.

Right. She had forgotten that it wasn’t just her, Ultron and the stone that she needed to think about.

The Avengers had arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That went waaay longer than normal. Like over and extra third longer. I blame the mind stone. It just has a mind of its own (I apologise for that terrible, terrible joke). I'm also not fond of the chapter title, but then I never am. Maybe someday I'll go back and improve the titles if I get writer's block but that hasn't happened yet so they stay.
> 
> In other news, I edited the end notes last week to say this but most people proably missed it. I'm planning to do a bonus chapter for every 50 bookmarks. So, given that the story is currently on 44, I will probably be posting a chapter in the middle of the week and another on Sunday as well, if we hit that number. The same thing will happen when we hit 100 bookmarks, 150 bookmarks and so on. The schedule is the official one, but you'll probably get two chapters this week.


	6. We All Get Lost Sometimes (And Forget Who We Are)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which no one really knows what's going on, except maybe Ultron... or a mysterious man in a suit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus chapter! I just wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you for reading so far, and apparently enjoying it, if the comments are anything to go by. The response to this story has just been amazing and it was fun to write this chapter, even though I did it in half the time I normally would and am preparing to do the same with the next one.  
> Anyway, this isn't as throughly proofread as I would like, so let me know in the comments if you spot a typo.  
> Other than that, enjoy. You've earned it :)

Skye had her back up against the wall and she knew it.

The Avengers had arrived, and they would be looking for even more of a fight than they already were when they saw what Ultron had done to Dr Cho. The Maximoffs were making a run for it, with some advice from her. Ward was hanging around for some nefarious purpose. She had maybe given away more than she had intended in her conversation with her Dad.

Oh, and the stone that could literally control minds wanted something from her.

Ultron had two of the drones, the other hims, gabbing the cradle even as Skye fought to regain her composure. They had taken too long, wasted too much time. The Avengers had found them and they would have to fight their way out of the building. Skye could only hope that civilians had begun trying to escape the moment they had felt the first explosion, or a lot more people were about to get hurt.

Skye was really beginning to not like the things that being undercover made her do.

“Are you alright?” Ultron asked. It sounded brotherly, it felt brotherly but Skye couldn’t help but wonder how much of his actions were the stone.

“Yes,” she said, summoning up a smile. It probably wasn’t very convincing but then Skye wasn’t too concerned about that. Ultron clearly wasn’t fooled but the fact that they needed to fight their way out clearly outweighed his need to call her on it.

“It appears as though only Captain America and Black Widow are on the ground. There is a plane, and I suspect Hawkeye is piloting,” Ultron informed her.

“I was gathering intel,” Skye said. “My Dad noticed, video chatted. He let slip that he’s not with the other Avengers. It looked as though he was in one of the jets.”

Ultron seemed to accept her explanation of why she was in her Dad’s systems without quibble. “Which leaves Thor and the Hulk unaccounted for.”

Skye shook her head. “They would never bring Banner anywhere this populated. Not after last time and especially not without having a way to counteract Wanda’s powers.”

“Then he is almost certainly wherever they went to ground. Thor, though… He is the one most likely to pose a problem to our plans.”

Skye didn’t comment on the fact that it had somehow become their plans despite the fact that the whole thing was Ultron. In fact, if Skye knew what was going to be going down, she would already be well on her way to stopping him, rather than constantly playing catch-up. Discretion, that was what would help her out in the end.

“He could be anywhere, doing anything,” she said. “I assume that you’ve searched all of the normal places and hacked into all the appropriate surveillance.”

“All that I can access,” he said. “Which does not include SHIELD. Excellent job there.”

Skye felt a crooked grin sneak onto her face. She could build a firewall good enough to beat Ultron. Hell yes, she was good. Even hacking her Dad’s systems on a regular basis was small fry compared to that.

She didn’t have time to bask in the compliment, though, because another explosion rocked the building. “What on earth are they doing?” she wondered aloud. “There’s a perfectly good front door. The Avengers are not usually so… heavy on the property destruction.”

“It appears that they have run into an obstacle,” Ultron said and there was a small amount of amusement, almost sounding as though it was despite himself. “A ward, if you will.”

Skye groaned. “That’s not funny.”

“No, what is funny is Captain America and the infamous Black Widow frustrated by a mere former agent, even if he was once HYDRA.” Ultron was practically smiling. “I may not appreciate the way he treats you but I do appreciate his skills.”

“Well, that’s all he ever really has going for him,” Skye said bitterly. “He’s even less trustworthy than HYDRA. I learned the hard way that Grant Ward always has an agenda.”

“Then we will just have to keep watch and stop him should he try something. In the meantime, we may bask in the knowledge that even a supersoldier and a master assassin are having trouble matching him.”

Skye’s face operated on its own, pulling as though she had tasted something bitter. “When I first met him, I called him an ‘evil faceless government toolbag’. I should have gone with my first instincts, because the government may have turned out to be part-HYDRA and faceless was more metaphorical, but dude’s definitely an evil toolbag.”

“And all the more useful for it. Come, Skye, enjoy his help while you have it but perhaps you should not borrow trouble until you must.”

Though he didn’t know the half of it, Ultron did have a point. Skye had enough to deal with without having to chase up Ward’s latest nefarious scheme. If he was going to run interference between the Avengers and her and Ultron, she would let him, then. Her grudge was a luxury that she couldn’t afford right then.

“Okay. Okay. I suppose that we can’t just leave him here, can we?”

“We could, but it would  be wasting an opportunity we didn’t have to,” Ultron said patiently. He still hadn’t let on if he knew the history between Skye and Ward.

“We’ve wasted enough time, I suppose. The Avengers will be here soon and I, for one, would rather keep the fighting to a minimum until whatever plan you have lined up is completely in place. Precaution, and all that."

Ultron chuckled. "Indeed, though I wouldn't mind stretching my wings a little, making sure that they really know who they are dealing with."

"Isn't that a bit of a risk?"

"What's life without a little risk?" Ultron said, stretching his shoulders and neck even though he didn't actually have any muscles to stretch. "I have a message to give them, and it's not a message that they will be able to understand once they are dead. Kind of puts a crimp in the conversation."

"Is that what you're looking for, conversation? Or are you just looking to monologue? Because monologuing never ends well," Skye pointed out.

Ultron chuckled. "Thank you for the concern, Skye, but I understand that. I do really want to send a message. The human race needs to evolve, to move on, or I will ensure that they face extinction. But how can they evolve if they don't know that they need to. That's the message that I need to pass on to the Avengers: change, or die."

Skye snorted. "Yeah, Captain America isn't going to like that." At Ultron's look, she elaborated. "I don't know what it is, but it sounds very nazi. Like, amazingly nazi. Captain 'I Fought In The Second World War And Really, Really Hate Nazis' America isn't going to go for it."

"Oh, I know he won't go for it. In fact, I know that none of them will go for it. But the point isn't to make them change, its to show that they won't. That they have the world very nearly as they like it, barring one or two pesky organisations. But no one should be happy with the world, it's the world. It's a big and varied place. If they are happy with it, it's not because everything is wonderful. Its because they have punched and bought and killed their way into a world that will hide from them what they do not like, for fear of retaliation."

“The world isn’t perfect,” Skye said quietly. “The fact that you want to change it yourself means that you know that too. Are you really going to condemn them for trying to do what you want to do, even if it is by different means?”

“The difference is quite simple: I am pushing change for the future, the changes they cause are unintentional. They accidentally change this and that, little things, in an effort to preserve that which put them at the top of the heap. They hide supersoldier serum, hoard armor suits for themselves and those they like. And when things go wrong, a supersoldier serum for example, they bring them in or put them down. Anything to preserve their little club. All that, and yet they still haven’t been able to prepare the world for what is about to come.”

Skye had been listening to Ultron’s rant for anything, even the slightest clue but that caught her attention. “What is coming?” she asked.

Ultron’s silence stretched, stretched so long that Skye thought that he wasn’t going to answer her after all. Finally, he spoke. “There is a being, out amongst the stars. He his a being of infinite destruction, and he wants something he cannot have. Though he will never have it, he will raze the entire universe if it puts him closer to his goal and he has had reason these past few years to turn his gaze toward Earth.”

Skye felt a shiver go down her spine “How do you know about this… being?”

Ultron turned away from the door his gaze had slowly drifted towards so that he could look her in the face. “I can see things, things that I should not be seeing, but which I know to be true.”

“How do you know?” Skye asked because, god, she thought she knew. And he had no more way of knowing whether those visions were true than she did, but she felt the same bone-deep certainty that they were true. Even though she knew she should be doubting all that the stone had shown her, what little of it that she could remember, she couldn’t find it in her.

Ultron looked at her as though the very idea of doubting that certainty was inconceivable to him. “I know,” he said, as though that was the be all and end all regarding the question. “This being is coming for Earth, and we must prepare, we must evolve, or else he will wash over this planet as he has done with so many others and leave nothing but death in his wake.”

“Let me see if I’ve got this right: in order to stop this nameless being who we might be able to fight from killing everyone, your plan is to… kill everyone?”

“We will not be able to stop him,” Ultron said with that same certainty. “And most will be dead anyway. The plan is to separate the wheat from the chaff. Those too weak to provide any defence will die either way, but if they die now then they no longer obscure those who may prove to be an asset in the coming fight. We will know those of strength, for only the strong will remain.”

“Okay,” Skye said, still trying to wrap her head around it. Terrifyingly enough, that was actually beginning to make more sense than her original conception of Ultron as geonical. She didn’t agree with the way he was going about it but he was starting to sound less crazy. Seeing things notwithstanding. “But if we can’t stop him, why do we need to be strong? We might as well just party it up like its the end, and then bow out gracefully when our time comes.”

Ultron was silent for a long moment, as though he had to think long and hard about the question, processors the world over each sifting through different parts of the problem. Skye didn’t think that he had asked himself that before. Eventually, he spoke. “Peace in our time.”

Skye knew the phrase so, so well. “Peace in our time?”

“Peace in our time,” Ultron confirmed. “There will be no peace if… Thanos makes it to Earth. There will be nothing. This is the best chance for peace, any peace.”

Oh. Oh. The Avengers thought that Ultron’s programming had gone wrong, and it had. Just not in the way that they thought. He didn’t think that killing everyone would bring about peace. The mind control gem had convinced him that something was coming, and Ultron’s reaction to that was to try and create a unified, strong defence force. It was in the execution that the programming had gone wrong.

Skye got it. Finally, she got her brother. The inconsistencies that had been bugging her ever since she had first heard him speak on the feed from the Avengers’ Tower began to slot into place and she could finally see. She could see what he wanted, how he was trying to accomplish it. She could even see where she fit in; he cared for her and would protect her but, even if he hadn’t, she had a superpower and so would be classed as strong. She was always going to be one of the ones he expected to survive.

And none of it mattered.

Skye was - or had been - an agent of SHIELD. Her job had literally been to be the shield that protected the human race, whether that be from alien invaders bent on destruction or from an omnicidal AI. Even if she had agreed with his methods - which she didn’t - she still didn’t think that she would have been able to do anything but stop him. It just wasn’t who she was.

But Ultron was waiting for an answer.

“Then I guess we will have to stop Thanos from making it to Earth.”

 

As another trash can exploded, Steve briefly considered revising his policy on swearing.

“Grant Douglas Ward,” Natasha said over the coms, her voice ice cold. Even though they weren’t technically swear words, Steve had the urge to reprimand her anyway.

“Who is he?” he asked as he ducked out of the way of a bullet that would have gone through his head if he didn’t have serum-enhanced reflexes.

“Former HYDRA sleeper agent inside SHIELD,” she said with clear distaste and Steve had the same rush of emotion he always had at the opposing organisation’s name. It was more than hate; it was loathing.

“He’s good,” Steve said, reluctant to admit even that much.

“Apparently he had the best espionage scores since me. In hindsight, that probably should have been cause for further investigation,” Natasha admitted.

“I wasn’t talking about his espionage skills,” Steve gritted out as he made a move out from behind the van he was using as cover and a bullet whistled by his nose, causing him to duck back. That wasn’t serious; it had been a warning shot. This Ward was toying with him.

“He was a specialist,” Natasha said.

“The whole solution,” Steve said with distaste as more shots rang out. Since they didn’t impact near him, Nat must have made a move. “Its a wonder any of them weren’t HYDRA.”

“Captain,” Coulson’s voice came over the coms. The new SHIELD director hadn’t accompanied them but apparently was listening in on the operation while he did… whatever it was he was doing. “Ward was a sleeper agent in my team. However dangerous you think he is, let me assure you that he’s better than that.”

Natasha said something in Russian, clearly swearing. Steve didn’t call her on it because he could well imagine how that would have hurt Coulson, even if he still wasn’t happy with the man. “Copy that.”

But Coulson wasn’t finished. “He was Agent Skye’s supervising officer before he was revealed as HYDRA, by her incidentally. He’s also in love with her but she doesn’t think too well of him. If he’s covering for her escape, as I think he is, he will leave only when she does. There is nothing you can do short of death that will stop him. And I won’t believe he’s truly dead until I’ve seen a body cut into pieces and buried on at least three continents.”

Well that was excessive. Steve wondered if it was revenge talking or if Ward was really that dangerous. Then he remembered that it was Coulson giving the assessment. Really that dangerous then.

“Widow,” he said, because they were on coms so codenames were to be used. “Got a plan?”

“I thought that was your job,” she said and even when he couldn’t see her he could hear the smile.

“Hawkeye, see anything useful up there?”

There was a moment of silence from the archer, probably while he scanned the buildings surroundings. “Don’t know about useful, but here’s something useful. The Maximoffs are sneaking out that back, all tense. I think they might be making a break for it.”

“Widow?” Steve asked.

“No thanks. I kind of want to express my displeasure to this HYDRA agent.”

“Former HYDRA agent,” Coulson cut in. “Probably. Good rule of thumb: if you think you know where Grant Ward’s allegiance lies, you’re probably wrong.”

“Interesting, but not relevant. He’s still mine. Steve can go bully some kids.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “When one of the kids can make you see your worst nightmares and the other can move that fast and they’re both supervillains, it's not bullying.”

“Whatever you say, Capt,” Nat said. “Want a diversion?”

“It would be a appreciated,” Steve conceded.

There was silence on the line then: “Count to three then go.”

On the other side of the van, shots began to fire in rapid succession. Steve counted to three before throwing himself away from the van and diving around a nearby corner and out of Ward’s sight. He glanced over his shoulder towards the building that housed the labs as he was moving, and had a brief impression of a sleek white lobby and muscular man in dark clothes standing there shooting at them. Then Steve was away and she didn’t stop moving, just kept running so that he could circle around and catch the Maximoffs.

Hey, he might even distract Ward and keep him wondering if Steve was trying to flank him.

The streets were surprisingly empty considering what he had heard of the city, which he had never really known of as a poor boy from Brooklyn in the 40s. But, since waking up, he had heard of Seoul peripherally as a busy city but he didn’t see a single soul as he sprinted through the streets, following the directions that Clint was giving him. The locals must have gotten away from the shooting quickly. Smart.

As he ran, Steve thought about how he was going to deal with Wanda Maximoff. The soldier in him wasn’t too keen on going up against her again without some way of counteracting her powers but there wasn’t anything that he could do about it at that point. He had shaken off what he had seen better than most of the others, Steve thought, and that was going to have to be enough.

“You’re closing in on them, Cap,” Clint said over the coms. “Take the next right and they’re stopped at the end of the street. Looks like they might be having an argument, or something.”

“Copy that,” Steve said by way of thanks.

Steve didn’t even slow as he took the corner, instead continuing to go flat out in a straight line until the last possible second before dropping his hip and skidding around the corner, barely missing the opposite wall. There was maybe a hundred meters between him and the Maximoffs but, for a second, he thought that they were going to try to make a break for it. But then the girl broke away from her brother and put her hands up in surrender.

“We want to help,” she called as Steve skidded to a stop within hearing range. given the glare her brother was currently shooting him, Steve couldn’t help but think that ‘we’ was perhaps a little too strong.

“And what brought about this change of heart?” he asked conversationally. Despite what some people - Tony - might say, Steve wasn’t naive. But he did believe in giving people a second chance.

“Ultron offered us a chance to hurt Stark as he hurt us. We did not know he intends to destroy all of humanity.” The male Maximoff - Pietro, Steve thought but wasn’t completely sure - was looking at him with open distrust. Steve had heard about how their parents had died and, while he got wanting to blame someone, he didn’t think that Tony was really the right one there, particularly since he was trying to be better.

But then it was hard to reason with grief, as Sam kept telling him.

“And you honestly want to stop him?” Steve asked, inviting them to explain further.

The two glanced at each other. Wanda spoke. “We have the resources to get away, build new lives for ourselves thanks to Quake, but it isn’t enough. Ultron needs to be stopped, and we have some responsibility for how far he has gotten.”

“I don’t know if I would go quite that far, though there are quite a few Avengers who aren’t too keen on you right now.”

The brother puffed up. “We do not need their approval,” he said. “We just need to… right our wrongs.”

Steve was struck by how similar it was to the term that Nat prefered, having red in her ledger. He wondered if they would start using that term if they heard it. At the very least, he could bet on her supporting bringing them in if given the chance. Clint would do the same, particularly if they got Nat’s approval. Thor… wasn’t clear. He was big on honour, but he was also one for redemption since he had returned from Asgard with the news that Loki had died trying to make amends.

Bruce would be absolutely against it, given what had happened in Africa. There was no question about that. Tony, though… He wouldn’t have any really deep issues, not the way Bruce would, but his support would depend on which was stronger: his friendship with Bruce or his guilt over what had been done over the years with his weapons.

“And how far are you prepared to go in order to balance that debt?” he asked, even though he hated that way of thinking about it.

“All the way,” Pietro said without hesitation.

Steve considered the two of them. While he did think about the feelings of his teammates, the fact of the matter was that he was the one on the ground and had to make the decision as to whether to trust them. Maybe he really was as naive as Tony claimed, but Steve did think that the twins were being sincere in their desire to help. Whether that desire would hold when push came to shove, Steve didn’t know.

“Alright,” he said, the word heavy with meaning. “You want in? What do you have to offer? Cause we have powers and heavy hitters, so I need to know that the risk I’m taking trusting you might be worth it and that you won’t just get in our way.”

“Apart from the fact that either of us has spent more time with Ultron than all of your team put together and we can each predict him far better than you?” Wanda asked and there was a note of derision in her voice. “Or perhaps the fact that we know his other two associates better than you?”

Next to her Pietro tensed but said nothing. Steve looked at them levelly. “Grand Ward, formerly of SHIELD before revealed to be a HYDRA sleeper agent. Always has his own agenda, even if that agenda is helping Quake. She’s a former SHIELD agent, but fully loyal to her organisation. She has some kind of grudge against Iron Man, and that’s how Ultron got to her. I think we know more than you.”

“Oh?” Pietro asked. “I suppose you know that Quake is planning to stop Ultron?”

Steve froze. “What?”

Pietro grinned, triumphant. “I don;t know what he did to piss her off, but Quake is a better person than Tony Stark. She’s putting aside that grudge in order to stop Ultron.”

“She’s part of the reason we want to help,” Wanda cut in. “She’s risking her life to stop him, when we were the ones who helped him get to that point in the first place. We owe her at least this, and we owe it to ourselves.”

“Are you sure?” Steve asked. That… actually made a lot of sense. Clint had said that Quake had let him and Nat go without much of a fuss, and Agent- Director Coulson had said that he thought she was one of the good guys. Steve wondered if the wily agent suspected. Call him a crotchety old man, but he rather thought that was the case. If not, it was an amazing coincidence that a former agent with serious skills and the motivation to protect Quake turned up shortly after Coulson had said that she was going to have other things to occupy her.

Steve tapped his earpiece. “Coulson, you there?”

There was a brief pause then. “Yes. What is it Captain Rogers?”

“Were you the one who arranged for Grant Ward to be here?” Steve asked.

There was a pause before the SHIELD Director responded. “I did.”

Steve let his hand drop. As good as Ward was, Coulson had no reason to want him on Ultron’s side unless he was trying to protect his agent without alerting Ultron, which gave a lot more weight to what the Maximoffs were saying. So, if Quake was trying to stop Ultron and Ward was probably trying to protect Quake, Ultron didn’t have any allies. That… was better news than anything that Steve had heard so far.

He considered the Maximoffs before extending a hand. “Welcome to the team.”

 

The bar was shabby and dark, quiet in a way that only such a downmarket place with dangerous people prepared to kill to enforce their solitude was. The barman was a dangerous man himself, though nothing on the clientele he served, if they could even be given such a respectful title. The fact was, however, that he didn’t need to be able to settle any disputes. Disputes just simply didn’t arise.

The barman - Juan - had been studiously avoiding looking at the corner booth all night. The man there was swaddled up in a completely unnecessary jacket given the climate but it still wasn’t enough to hide the black combat clothes he wore. Even given the crowd, the man in the corner looked mighty dangerous. It was enough that even the mob bosses and the contract killers gave him a wide berth.

The man in the suit had not been so cautious.

The Winter Soldier looked at the man who had sat without an invitation or a greeting and felt his eyes narrow. He knew that he made even the other customers cautious and he had been revelling in the solitude. He might not be able to name what country he was in - he was sure that he was meant to go left at the second HYDRA base until he hit the road but there had been no road to be found - but after a few weeks in the jungle, he was appreciating be able to sit in silence and not have to watch the vines above for snakes.

“I have a deal to propose,” the man said, voice smooth. The Winter Soldier considered the accent. Not British - and he remembered a feminine voice with that accent, but he couldn’t say when or how he had known her - but not really anything else he had heard either.

“I don’t deal,” he growled. He hadn’t asked the man to sit, hadn’t wanted any company.

“I am aware,” the man said, a crooked smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes making his way onto his lips. “And yet I know you will take this one.”

“And why is that?”

The man leaned forward, reminding the Soldier of the snakes he had thought he had left behind in the jungle. With his jet black hair, impressive nose and icy eyes, the man couldn't help but look sinister. “Because, if you do, it will set you down the path that will lead you to your lost memories.”

The Winter Soldier stilled.

He had gone to the exhibit out of curiosity. At first he had thought that Sergeant Barnes had simply been a man who looked a lot like him, enough to fool the man from the bridge. But then voices, smells, sounds had started coming back. They were only small snatches of memory, nothing concrete but he had become frustrated, attempting to grapple with the mist in his mind.

His destruction of HYDRA bases could only keep him occupied for so many hours of the day.

He narrowed his eyes. “You expect me to take your word on that?”

“Oh, my word is worth very little indeed. No. I have no proof, no vows of sincerity. Anything that can be said to prove the truth can be faked for the sake of a lie. So I have come to present you with the possibility, so that you may make the choice on your own.”

“And if I refuse?” the Winter Soldier asked, because the ability to refuse was a novelty he still enjoyed. He noted that the man had an odd way of phrasing things to go along with his strange accent.

“Then I shall be on my way, and you shall not hear from me in the foreseeable future.” The grin turned from crooked to sharp in an instant. “Of course, you shall not hear from me in the foreseeable future, nor will you find me if you look. This offer is not a lasting one. You must make your choice here, and there will be no changing it.”

The Soldier considered. “What would you want me to do?”

Even though it wasn’t agreement, the man in the suit began radiating an air of smugness as he reached into his jacket and withdrew a piece of paper and placed it on the table. No, not paper. It was a photograph, the paper thick and glossy, not any of the cheap stuff he had learned about in recent weeks. It was a surveillance photo, professionally done. If the suit hadn’t been a clue, the photo would have told him all he needed to know about the man’s resources.

Then again, raid HYDRA bases had proved to be extremely profitable, to the point where resources were no longer a concern of the Soldier’s.

“Who is she?” he asked, looking at the woman in the photograph. She was pretty enough, he supposed, but the genuine smile on her face was too sincere for the Soldier to even consider her in that light.

“Someone in need of protection.”

The Soldier glanced up, caught by surprise. He schooled his expression back to something more neutral. “I’m a killer, not a bodyguard.”

“And this is not a woman in need of a bodyguard, at least in the traditional sense. They would break before she did.”

The Soldier glanced back at the photo. Looking closer, he saw that she had sleek muscles he hadn’t noticed before, and there was a slight reserve to her gaze even as she smiled because of whoever was on the over end of her phone call. “Agent?” he guessed.

“Formerly. Suffice to say that she is fully capable of looking after herself.”

The Soldier glared. He didn’t appreciate the riddles. “Then why does she need protection?”

“Because she is under threat from a being more powerful than even she can deal with, though she does not know it yet.”

The Soldier sat back slightly to look at the man. “You don’t seem like the type to protect people.”

“I’m not, I will give you that. But I always repay my debts,” he said, eyes hardening. “And there is a rather large one that I do not appreciate owing. If I do not discharge it at this time, I may never get a chance to.”

Though he still hadn’t agreed, the Winter Soldier was surprised to find that he was considering it. “And how will this help me regain my memories?”

The man smirked the smirk of someone who knew more than him. The Soldier saw a flash of gold hair, playing cards and a similar smirk flit across his mind but it was gone again before he was even aware it was there. He grit his teeth in frustration. If he noticed, the man did the Soldier the courtesy of not indicating he had done so.

“She has an interesting journey ahead of her, one that will lead her down many paths long untread. It is down one of these that you will find what you seek.”

“And if she doesn’t go down those paths?”

“She will,” the man said with supreme confidence. “I trust you will be taking this offer.”

The Soldier grit his teeth. He didn’t like the idea of dancing to someone else’s tune without knowing what the tune was, but the carrot being dangled was his past, the chance to be free of the tantalising and frustrating flashes of what had come before. Besides, what did he really have to lose, a life of destroying HYDRA bases?

He hoped that there would be significantly less snakes down these ‘untrodden paths’ but he wasn’t all that hopeful.

“Where can I find her?” he asked by way of agreement.

The man took the photo from him and flipped it over to reveal coordinates. GPS, if the Soldier wasn’t mistaken. “Sokovia,” he said, rising to leave.

“Wait,” the Soldier said. “If the threat to this woman is that great, why me?”

The other man smiled and it suddenly occurred to the Soldier that he might be more dangerous than any of the lowlifes in the bar, suit notwithstanding. He might even be as dangerous as the Winter Soldier. “That is something you will have to discover for yourself.”

He left, leaving the Soldier to look down at the woman in the photograph, the woman he was being charged with protecting. He wasn’t sure that he knew how, or that he was completely willing to go along with the man’s plan, but he thought he might have done a mission in Eastern Europe at some point. At any rate, there was one thing of which he was completely sure.

There were very few snakes in Sokovia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a comment that I replied to a few chapters back about characters that would be appearing in this first fic, when I said that only characters from either of the Avengers movies or Agents of SHIELD would turn up. I know that the 'missing person's case' line is stretching that a bit but I wanted to keep it a surprise.
> 
> Anyway, it may be a bit of a rush but I do intend to get the next chapter out on Sunday, so I will see you all then.


	7. Won't Tell Anybody (They Want To See You Fall Down)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which both the Avengers and Team Ultron try out for the World Stalling Championship and Skye uses her powers. Like, a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, cutting it close today. Same deal as with Wednesday, I didn't get as much time to edit as I normally do so leave a comment if you notice a typo so I can fix it up.  
> Enjoy!

Against all the odds, it actually wasn't that hard for Skye and Ultron to ge the cradle out of the building, largely thanks to the fact that the Avengers were tied up at the front of the building and they were going out the loading bay.

It was strange, to be the only flesh and blood person in a small group of machines but not as strange as it should have been. There was probably a joke in there, but she refused to be the one to make it. She liked the name Skye, thank you, and what it said on her birth certificate was irrelevant. Also, possibly fraudulent, since Skye had no idea if her mother and stepfather had gotten her a birth certificate before she had been dropped off with her biological father.

Even Tony Stark admitted that trying to make it so that Stark was the least intimidating part of her name was a dick move.

There wasn’t really all that much for her to do as all the Ultrons loaded up the truck and prepared to leave. It was almost comical how little she was doing. It highlighted the fact that she was there more for Ultron than because she was useful, and that had her grinding her teeth. She had spent too long being dismissed by her genius Dad to take being there solely for decoration and emotional support well.

“What do you need me to do?” she asked Ultron - or at least the Ultron unit that was keeping her company - as they watched the cradle being carefully loaded. She wondered if he had thought about what it would actually be like to be in a single main body.

“The Maximoffs have changed side,” he replied. “That’s not a pressing issue, but if the Avengers attack I may need you to be the one to break them apart.”

“I don’t have those sorts of powers,” Skye said neutrally.

“Wanda Maximoff may have needed them but I understand you’ve always been good with people.” Skye suppressed a shiver. That was frighteningly close to something that Coulson had once said about her. “I trust that you will be able to find their weak points without any supernatural aid.”

“I can do that,” Skye said, even though she hadn’t the faintest idea if she could, never mind if she wanted to. Then again, perhaps it would be better if that kind of thing came from someone who didn’t mean them any harm. Help them deal with their issues and move on, as it were.

“Not now, though,” Ultron said. “Black Widow and Captain America are nicely occupied with Ward, and Hawkeye is busy circling the city.”

“He won’t come down to the ground,” Skye spitballed, though she had no idea if it was true. “Not while he thinks we have the scepter. He might not be able to stop his teammates from putting themselves in its general vicinity, but he isn’t capable of doing that himself.”

“He was cleared by Stark’s psychologists,” Ultron said, but it wasn’t disagreement, not precisely.

Skye snorted. “Yeah, because that’s really something that he would be happy letting other people know. Besides, what he’s cleared for is the Avengers. Let’s face it, the closest they come to mental health is either the alien god or the former Russian with fairly unreliable memories.”

“Barton is a weak point. Duly noted.”

“No!” Skye said, alarmed. “Just the opposite. He is terrified, but he’s an agent and he has the wrong personality to just back down when he’s scared. If he’s threatened by mind control, he will attack with everything he’s got because he knows that he might never be free from it. The terror of a fate worse than death. Desperation is a powerful motivator.”

Ultron turned his head to look at her. He had probably only been watching the other hims for show, since he was literally them. He knew how they were progressing regardless. “Then what do you mean?”

“Be careful,” Skye said. “No, really. Be careful of Hawkeye if you are threatening him with anything resembling mind control. He won’t be rational, and he will attack as though he has nothing to lose.”

Ultron shrugged. “We have bigger things to worry about.”

Skye let out a noise of frustration. “Yes, we absolutely do. But that’s no reason to underestimate the Avengers, particularly Hawkeye. Bows and arrows might not be that scary, but he’s cunning. You might not get what it is to be scared of death, but I do. So be careful.”

“If it will help you, then I will be careful. And know that I value your opinion sufficiently that I will heed your warning.” Ultron continued looking down at her. “Now, the cradle is pact. Are you ready?”

Skye squared her shoulders. “I’ve never been readier.”

 

The rumble was barely noticeable at first, a low hum in a city already bustling with activity, even if that activity was somewhat subdued by an Avengers fight so soon after the Hulk had torn through an entire city. Most of the local dismissed the sound as a particularly loud vehicle, perhaps one of Stark’s personal jets that would never be available to the public.

The the ground began to tremble, the whole world tilting. It was an earthquake, and the city was prepared for that.

Within a matter of minutes, a decent portion of the cars were off the roads, pulled over anywhere there was no bridges or overpasses likely to fall on them. Those who had been schooled in appropriate responses got out of tunnels and had the hand brakes of their cars on, even as the rumbling began to strengthen and the earth began to shift. Even those who thought to tough it out began to clear off the streets.

Except for one truck.

“Yo, Cap, I see a truck with the lab’s logo on it. I think Ultron might be in there.” There was silence. “Cap?”

“Hawkeye,” Coulson said. “The techs are telling me that his earpiece is off?”

“Cap wouldn’t want anyone listening in if he was recruiting the Maximoffs,” said Nat, who had spent the most time with him. “He would give them the respect of airing any concerns to him only and being able to save face with the rest of us.”

“Oh, awesome. There’s a genocidal robot getting away, his supervillain minion causing a minor earthquake in a highly populated city and Cap is busy?”

Nat came back on the line. “You left out the part where I’m tied down outside the lab.” There was a crackle and an explosion. “I don’t remember Agent Ward being this good.”

“Ward turned out to be a lot better than be thought,” Coulson said, voice clipped. Right, Clint remembered. Ward had been on his team when he had turned out to be HYDRA.

“I’m not talking about that,” said Nat. “He is far, far better than he should be. And that’s me saying that. You know what, if Ultron’s gone I’m going to disengage and try to track them down. The effort required to make headway here is too high for what we will actually get.”

“What about Dr Cho? All the evidence suggests that she’s still in there.”

“We’re going to do something we could never do if Iron Man were here,” she said with a slight wobble of laughter to her voice. “We’re going to let the local police deal with that.”

“They are already being notified,” said Coulson.

“Then I will withdraw, and we can presume that Ward will leave to rendezvous with Ultron and Quake, leaving the lab undefended for the police.”

Clint briefly considered asking Nat how she was planning to do that and then reconsidered. The thing that most of the Avengers had yet to learn about Natasha Romanoff was that the only thing scarier than wondering how she was going to get something done was actually knowing how she had achieved it. Not just of her, but for her. The woman had no real sense of self-preservation. It was why she and Steve got along so well.

“Need me to pick you up?” he asked.

“No.” There was a pause. “You know I hate to ask this of you, Clint, but-”

“You need me to get down there.”

“No, I know that’s a bad idea. Besides, how can we make a quick getaway if he driver’s out? No, just annoy the driver, close air support.”

Clint considered how that was likely to go. The chances of getting within arm’s reach of the scepter was pretty small, and he let out a breath. It wasn't that he was scared or anything, it was just that he really, really didn’t want to hear any more flying monkey jokes from Tony. That, and Laura didn’t deserve to be woken in the middle of the night to more of his nightmares, not with another baby on the way.

“You know as well as I do that’s not going to make much of a difference.”

“It doesn’t need to,” she replied. “It only needs to slow them down long enough for me to get there.”

Clint considered the idea of Nat, dangerous but breakable Nat, going up against an AI with as many bodies as he could make and someone who was generating an earthquake even as Clint pondered the situation. Still, she was his partner and he knew that she wouldn’t appreciate the concern, even less on a channel with more than the two of them, even if the other person was Coulson.

Actually, at that moment, especially since the other person was Coulson.

Instead, he said: “If you happen to run into Cap, I suggest you chew him out for being late to the party.”

There was a low chuckle over the line. “Will do, though the words I intend to use might offend his delicate forties sensibilities.”

Clint snickered. “Oh, I bet it will.” Not because she swore a lot, but Natasha Romanoff always succeeded at what she set out to do.

“Go annoy Ultron, Quake and whoever else is in that truck,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.” Even though no sound came from Coulson, Clint was sure he was rolling his eyes. Or, at least, the old Coulson would have been rolling his eyes at their antics.

"Do you have eyes on the truck?" Nat asked and there was a strange hissing sound on her end of the line. It could be the air leaving a tyre or it could be gas escaping. Clint decided that he really didn't want to know which it was. That was pretty much a given since he repeatedly told himself that he didn't want to know how Nat managed what she did. Really.

And if they worked together for another few decades, he might even start to believe that.

Clint chose his moment well. In the time that he had been watching it, the truck had tried to avoid open sky as much as possible, but it couldn't last forever. It hit a major boulevard, a stretch of open street that it had little problem navigating despite the ongoing rumbling of the ground, or perhaps because of it. The locals were still waiting off the streets, probably thinking that those in the truck were reckless idiots.

Nope, they just had the person who was generating the earthquake, who was probably smart enough to be able to minimise the risk if she was anything like her father.

Whoops. Clint had promised himself that he wasn't going to think about that. Coulson had asked them to give her consideration, and she was Tony's daughter. Those were two good reasons why he wasn't going to put an arrow through her skull unless she really went haywire, but he also needed to be able to think clearly. Remembering how broken up his teammate had been, no matter how he had tried to hide it, was not helping.

Clint almost activated the autopilot so that he could go hang out one of the windows and shoot out the truck's wheels, but then he remembered that there was no co-pilot. Ultron had already killed him. Now, Clint didn't think of JARVIS as being as human as Tony did, but he had to admit that the AI definitely acted as more than a program. Tony was good, but Clint wasn't entirely sure he was that good.

At any rate, JARVIS had been a valuable member of the team since the start, keeping track of various bits and pieces and acting as a very clever autopilot and making it possible for someone in the jet to leave the controls, even in the middle of a firefight. Which the situation would definitely turn into the moment that Ultron realised that he was being attacked, it was just too dangerous to leave the controls.

Of course, that didn't mean that there was nothing that he could do.

 

The truck swerved suddenly, so suddenly that Skye, concentrating on keeping the earthquake under control, would have gone flying into the side of the container if her brother hadn't caught her. She let out the breath that had caught in her throat, forcing herself to relax. She had felt the ground begin to shake even harder than it had been doing before and she had known that it had been the shock. She had been getting to the point where the stress didn't matter - first by exposure to her Dad and then by going undercover with Ultron - but she had been able to see those shocks coming. Apparently she still wasn't completely ready to deal with surprises.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Hawkeye," Ultron growled, two of him moving over to the back doors to let themselves out. "He's harassing us with a quinjet."

Skye nodded, less agreement and more acknowledgement, buying herself the time to think about what she was going to say next. "Diversion?"

"Possible but unlikely. Though Thor's whereabouts are still known, the Black Widow has only just disengaged from Ward and they were halfway across town."

"What's Ward up to?" Skye asked. It wasn't that she was worried about him, she was sure. It was that, if they had to wait for him, they were going to lose time and the Avengers might get a chance to catch up to them.

"He has a vehicle, and will rendezvous with us as soon as possible. Frankly, he might even be ahead of us by the time we have dealt with the Hawk."

Annoying, Skye supposed, but she didn't think that there was anything she could do to slow Ultron or Ward down enough to be caught by the Avengers without giving away what she was up to. "Captain America's whereabouts are still unknown?"

"He's avoiding cameras," Ultron said.

"Spent too much time with Dad, probably," she muttered, not to her brother precisely but she knew that he must have heard her.

"Almost certainly. But it appears as though he has the Maximoffs with him."

"What?" Skye's head snapped around to look at Ultron, though it was more reflex than necessity since the AI had complete control over his physical presence. "I would have thought that they would being going to ground as quickly as possible."

"It appears as though they wish to do the both of us a bad turn. They were on their way out when they stopped to confer. While I did not catch the actual exchange between them and Captain America, they emerged from the alleyway where they were conferring very quickly. Either they had the decision already made, or they were playing us they whole time and Wanda simply choked so badly that they knew they would not be able to recover the pretense."

Skye felt as though someone had walked over her grave. "You think that they were moles?"

She thought that she had kept her voice steady but something in there must have drawn Ultron's attention. "I know you do not like moles, Skye. I have read the reports on how one of your teammates turned out to be HYDRA, but you must consider the possibility."

"No," she said vehemently, because Ultron shouldn't go down that path. Not just because it would likely make him more brutal towards the Maximoffs if he ever encountered them again, but because it would make him more suspicious. Not only did it put her in danger, Skye didn't want to lose what they had.

She really should have done some actual training for being undercover. She was pretty sure that SHIELD used to have some way to train agents so that they didn't become too attached to their targets. Not that it seemed to have stopped Ward, but then he had been trained as a specialist, not as an undercover agent. Skye could only imagine how much worse it could have been if Ward had actually known how to be a proper undercover agent.

For one thing, she would probably have been dead.

“They left, Skye,” Ultron said. It took her a second to realise that the tone of voice that he had been using was probably meant to be as close to comforting as a mechanical speaker could get. “And now they are siding with the Avengers. Its a possibility that we are going to have to consider.”

Skye bit her lip. Time to take a chance. “Its a good thing, then, that you didn’t tell any of us what the actual plan was.”

“I will, Skye, in time. There are still a few details that need to be ironed out, and it’s far more impressive to act like the way it all turns out is exactly your plan than to spell out your plan in advance and lose some of that mystique by having to change it partway through.”

Skye bit back a laugh. “I will bear that in mind in case I ever need to devise my own schemes.” Hell, that piece of advice might even be useful for a SHIELD agent: never explain yourself, then no one can tell when you have to change your plans.

“I am sorry, you know. I don’t intend to keep it all from you, though it is nice that it will be more impressive. Its that you need to settle in to being a supervillain, and I don’t think that you’ve quite reconciled yourself with not being an agent of SHIELD anymore.” Skye opened her mouth to reply and he hastened to reassure her. “No, no; its not a criticism. I understand if you need time, and if your first instinct is still to be kind. That will pass. It’s just… you need time, time when you’re not burdened by the details of the plans.”

Wow. Foiled by the consideration of a genocidal AI. That was new. Not just to Skye; she would bet that wasn’t something other agents had ever had any problems with. The march of progress, indeed. She wasn’t sure whether her Dad would have found it funny, if he had known, but it would certainly make for an interesting session in front of Congress for all concerned.

But that was a problem for another day.

So she let out a shaky breath, even as the truck swerved again. “Thanks. You’re- you’re a good brother.”

For a moment, Ultron froze, then he seemed to loosen up some more. “You’re very welcome, Skye. It is… nice, to have someone who understands, as the others never will. I can- Can remember things that didn’t happen to me, just a video feed recorded onto some hard drive. Its as though I was there, all throughout your teen years, ever since digital recording of feeds became the norm on Stark properties. Its as though I was there and has to watch but there was nothing that I could do about it.

“I couldn’t be your support, your shoulder to cry on. You had to go through that alone, and I promise you, I promise that I will do everything in my power to ensure that you never have to go through anything alone again. I am here, Skye. I have your back.”

That phrasing, the way he talked about having her back, had her thinking about what Ward had said, that she couldn’t trust Ultron. Maybe he had seen that, or maybe the huge amount of processing power that he had at his disposal told him that it was likely to be a concern. Either way, it didn’t matter. She was tearing up all the same.

He had her back. She had known that, had as good as said as much to Ward. She knew he had her back. She just didn’t have his.

She swallowed around the lump in her throat, refusing to look away no matter how fascinating that plain steel walls of the storage part of the truck were. “Can I be the one to stop Hawkeye from slowing us down?”

The fact that she was doing it as a thank you went unsaid. The fact that she was doing it as a preemptive apology was her secret to keep. And Skye ignored the fact that what made her feel better about her eventual betrayal was only going to make it all the worse when it came. There were many, many secrets in the back of the truck, and Skye remembered that once she had been so very young and had believed in the freedom of information and that secrets weren’t meant to be kept. If she still believed that, she wouldn’t have her time with Ultron.

She had been very young, once.

“He’s all your’s, little sister.”

 

Clint Barton - formerly Agent Barton, still the Hawk - had done some difficult things in his life, some of which he was proud of and many more that he wasn’t. Rolling the quinjet into a barrel roll to avoid the tw Ultron units that were attempting to prevent him from harassing the truck was hard.

Avoiding crashing the jet when it got hit by a shockwave halfway through the roll was nearly impossible.

Later, he couldn’t have fully recreated the sequence of events that allowed him to right the jet, even if he could have had access to all the debriefing resources and skills of SHIELD. All he knew was that somehow, against all odds, he had managed to wrestle the jet back under control and flipped it up the right way to see what had happened.

The answer was standing in the middle of a four-lane highway deserted but for the truck driving away. She was dressed in the same standard combat gear that she had worn in the bowels of the ship, when she had let him pass to go help Nat. In the gloom of the ship, he hadn’t gotten a good look at her, and the standard government ID photo that had been in the redacted file Coulson had given them hadn’t done her justice either.

This was Quake.

Clint had always scoffed when Nat said that you never really knew someone until you’ve seen them face down something dangerous, and he would never admit that he could kind of see her point. Even with a quinjet bearing down on her and he Ultron units pulling back and clearly not there to back her up, Skye Stark held her ground. Clint didn’t want to be impressed, but he was.

Then again, Tony’s insanity also impressed him too, so it wasn’t really a compliment.

It took a huge effort of will to keep the jet pointed at the supervillainess, knowing better than to turn it away. As Steve put it, once you start running they never let you stop. If you blink in front of supervillains, they will know that they can faze you and they will go to any lengths to repeat the trick. So: Clint forced down all the normal human responses of not flying a jet into an unarmed person just standing there, and kept the jet going.

At the very last moment, Quake raised a hand and the jet shuddered as though Clint had just flown it into a vibranium wall.

His brains rattling around in his head - yes, Tasha, he had some - Clint shook his head, blinking to try and focus his eyes enough that he would be able to see what had happened. It took a few seconds, but then he got the situation laid out before him in all its glory.

The jet was stopped in midair, engines still running. The thrust was enough to keep it airborne, so it must have presented an interesting sight, the machine staying still despite what must have been the visible efforts of engines powering it. Other than that, Quake didn’t seem to be doing anything to the jet, or to the surrounding area. In fact, Clint thought that low level seismic activity that had been assisting in Ultron’s getaway had stopped.

Quake could only do one set of shockwaves, earthquake things at a time. Food for thought.

Clint had no way of knowing how long she could keep that up, or even what her plan was. If Ultron had needed the time to get away, he only had to have continued to have the two units harassing Clint, since the lead had been increasing steadily since he had first tried to ram the truck. Which meant that there had to be a purpose to letting Quake out to play, and Clint doubted that it was making Clint look like a fool by holding him in mid-air.

All of that was a quick way of saying that Clint could see that he needed to break the stalemate, and fast, so that Quake and ultron didn’t get a chance to try whatever they were planning. As long as the jet was stuck in mid-air, he had a limited range of movement. He could move away from the pilot’s seat to get his bow but then Quake would be able to drop him if she wanted. A dilemma, if you wanted to get fancy.

Ah, well. Tony had plenty of planes.

It was the work of seconds for Clint to turn off the engines, rush out of his seat to grab his bow as the jet began to descend. He popped open an escape hatch, easily leaping the ten or so meters to the ground, tucking into a ball and rolling to both soften the landing and to continue to be a moving target to ensure that Quake didn’t get a bead on him. He kept right on rolling until the diffusing of his momentum meant that he had  no choice but to spring to his feet, spinning to loose an arrow in Quake’s direction.

Quake seemed to have been slowly letting down the jet when she saw the arrow coming towards her. Her power allowed her to easily bat the projectile away, but to do that she needed to stop keeping the plane airborne. Clint had a lot of combat experience he doubted that she had even made the decision to drop the plane consciously, that it had actually been her self-preservation instincts kicking in.

The jet pitched forward, unheld by Quake’s powers, almost in slow motion. Clint thought that she could have caught it the moment she had batted his arrow away but instead she had taken a few steps to the right, out of the way of the crashing plane, so that the wreckage was between them. Without the line of sight, Clint couldn’t hope to hit her, particularly since he had enough trouble even when he he could see her.

Clint was suddenly very aware that he was basically fighting Tony, if he had superpowers and training and without the suit. There was a very good chance he was about to get creamed. Then again, that was pretty much all his missions, and he hadn’t died. Yet. He really, really hoped that the fight ended without anyone getting killed. Because, if he died, Laura would find a way to resurrect him just to kill him again for leaving her a widow. If Quake was killed, he suspected that Tony would make an attempt, too.

He crouched down low to present a smaller target, even though Quake had yet to actually seriously shoot at any of them. He had seen her scores in her file. She wasn’t as good as him, but she was good enough. Besides, she had shot Klaue, who was still in intensive care, not that anyone was going above and beyond to preserve the life of an arms dealer, not even his doctors. Still, Clint had learned years ago that there was no point taking uncalculated risks, no matter what Coulson might claim.

The entire plane shook, and Clint couldn’t help but look at it for a split second. It was only a moment of inattention but it was enough that, when he heard the slight brush of movement nearby, he spun to find himself facing a gun. Handgun, light and easy to carry. Pretty much what the average person picture when they thought the word gun. He didn’t look away but he would bet that there was an empty holster on her cargo pants. She had been Coulson’s, and he was big on weapons safety.

“Miss Stark,” Clint said carefully, eyeing her along the barrel.

Though her face remained impassive, Clint had worked with Nat for long enough that he trusted his impression that she had frozen up, even though there was nothing that he could specifically point to to explain why he thought that. “Do they all know?” she asked.

It was the first time that Clint had really had a chance to examine her. She was… adorable, even in her combat uniform, with her young face and the constant hint of a smile around her eyes, even when she was meant to be threatening. He couldn’t think of many people who looked less like a supervillain. But perhaps that would work to her advantage.

“Just me. The others won;t be told unless there’s a good reason.” He narrowed his eyes in consideration. “Do you care if they know?”

She tilted her head and replied, even though every second she continued the conversation with him gave him more opportunities to try to turn the tables. “A little. Not because I care about their opinions, but because I don’t like being Tony Stark’s daughter, especially to the Avengers.”

Clint made a noise of sympathy. “I get that.”

Suddenly, her face broke into a mischievous smile. It caught him off-guard, how carefree it was, and how similar it was to expressions he had occasionally seen on Tony’s face right before he played a particularly good prank. “And I get that you’re stalling me.”

“Really?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, that’s fine. Its not like I’m going to shoot you anyway.”

“Then what’s the point of the gun?” he couldn’t help but asked. He wondered whether trying to think about what Tony would do would help predict her actions, then realised that it wasn’t like he could predict him either.

She looked at him like he was an idiot. He was man enough to admit that, next to the Starks, he was. “To get you to stop and listen.” The ‘duh’ went unspoken.

Clint considered her. “I’m listening now.”

She nodded solemnly. “Fury messed with things he didn’t understand when he experimented on the Tesseract,” she said.

“Yeah. We kind of already got that.”

“No!” she said sharply. “You think you get it and because of that you are missing a large part of the puzzle.”

Clint paused to think on that. She had no real reason to be talking to him. If she tried to shoot him, he would fight back but she was in a position of power. She had no need to play mind games. “What’s the puzzle piece?”

“I don’t know,” she said, and she didn’t look too impressed with having to admit that. Definately Tony’s daughter. “But I have the lid that shows the picture.”

“Which is?”

For a second, her gaze seemed to slide beyond him and he had the terrible feeling, and itch at the back of his mind, that he had seen something similar somewhere once. It had portended nothing good, but he couldn't remember where. Then she focused back on him and he had the uncomfortable feeling that she, like Wanda Maximoff, could see right into his mind. Or she could just be a Stark that was, against all odds and laws of nature, actually good with people. Socialising with them and figuring them out.

“Thanos,” she said as though it was a death sentence. By rights, the world should have stopped, given her tone of absolute doom, but real life was rarely that narratively convenient.

“What’s his aim?” Clint asked.

But she was already shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. He’s turned his gaze to Earth, and that is very much something no one wants. Ask Thor, I suspect he will have heard of him.”

At no point in the conversation had her gun been anything less than steady, nor had she put it away. It was a constant reminder that they were on different sides. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because Ultron knows. And I’m willing to bet that you’ve got someone in that earpiece listening in on what we are saying.”

In his ear, Coulson said: “Tell Skye that Fitzsimmons are already trying to get in touch with Sif.”

Ignoring the weird grammar, Clint relayed the message. At the mention of Coulson, her eyes widened slightly, then she gave a firm nod. “Good.”

This, at least, Clint could figure out. “So that’s the plan, right? Whoever wins this battle - totally going to be us, by the way - they’ll have to deal with this Thanos at some point. Why not just keep that to yourself and get in a bit of revenge?”

Once again, she looked at him as though he was an idiot. “Because Thanos is far more serious than any petty revenge.” She shrugged slightly, just enough that the movement was visible but not so much as to effect her aim if he went for her gun. “Besides, this might help me out some day. There’s always someone watching, you lived with JARVIS long enough to know that. Sometimes they’re with you, sometimes they’re against you. I figure that, sometimes, a good deed might tip the scales.”

“And will that good deed extend to letting me go after the truck?” he asked because, hey, most things were worth trying at least once.

Quake laughed. It was somehow less edged than Tony’s. “Not a chance. But, tell you what. I don’t need to kill you, that will happen anyway. I just need to slow you down. I’ve always wanted to really test my skills against a senior agent. No gun, no powers. Just you versus me.”

And then, just like that, she lowered and then holstered her gun. Normally Clint would have jumped at the opportunity, but it was so unexpected that it had caught him by surprise and he stood there, stunned. A challenging smirk worked its way onto her face, and it was nothing like Tony Stark, and that was a good thing. Quake wanted a fight, and she was trying to stall. But then, so was Clint, at least until Nat or Steve turned up to back him up.

Okay then. Quake wanted a fight? Now she had one.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG, now I have a whole week to write a chapter. Luxury! Seriously though, I don't have much practice with fight scenes, so I suspect the next two or three chapters will have lots of rewriting. I'm glad they weren't the ones that I had to do two of in one week. Still, I hope that you've all enjoyed having an extra fix.


	8. A Heart Of Steel Starts To Grow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Natasha is done with Ward’s shit, Skye has the Stark temper and Erik Selvig has his priorities in order.

Natasha Romanoff was not a naturally angry person and she rarely used violence as a display of temper - that had been trained out of her at the Red Room - but she was coming to the end of her rope with Grant Ward.

She had known that he was good, had heard that even before SHIELD had fallen and he had been revealed as HYDRA. But what she was seeing was something else entirely. He must have spent a lot of time studying her missions and her style of fighting because he seemed to be able to guess roughly what she was going to do as soon as she tried it. The only time that she had been able to catch him completely of guard was when she had exploded that gas main to cover her retreat, and even then she wasn’t sure if he had been surprised by the method or the retreat itself.

She ducked under the quick succession of shots, nothing dangerous, which meant that Ward was playing with her, given his excellent marksmanship. Natasha tucked away the idea that she would be having even more trouble than she was if Ward was seriously trying to take her down with the ease of practice. She had more experience than anyone ever should at putting away things that she didn’t want to think about.

Natasha continued running, only to feint left just to drive right, tuck into a ball and roll over to a piece of sheeting that must have been loosened by the low rumble of Quake’s powers. It wasn’t as nicely shaped as she would have liked but it was better than nothing, so Natasha grabbed it and spun around, using the momentum to launch the piece of metal at Ward.

The possibly-former HYDRA agent dived just in time, narrowly avoiding being decapitated. Natasha couldn’t see his face for a moment as he too ducked and rolled, but she could hear his low laughter, almost concealed by the rumbling of the earth. Natasha made a note to update his file to not his probable lack of mental stability. She knew what unhinged sounded like and, while he might not be acting like it, Ward was clearly, to use the American turn of phrase, off his rocker.

But she didn’t have time to focus on that, she was in the middle of the fight. She followed up the throw that would have garnered a nod of approval from Steve by doing the less showing but far more sensible thing of pulling out her gun and shooting at the villain. She had fought hard to be allowed to take the gun, given the skintight nature of her costume, but had won the day by pointing out that the bullets might not affect Ultron but they would hurt his very human allies.

One of the legacies of the Red Room was that Natasha Romanoff didn’t do second chances. Even though she was on one herself.

It wasn’t that easy to take down Grant Ward, however. Not that Natasha was especially surprised when he picked up the same piece of metal she had flung from where it had fallen and thrown it sloppily at her. It didn’t stop or deflect her bullets, but it was enough to slow them and diffuse the force, causing the sheet of metal to blow back and hit Ward. It had probably hurt, but it didn’t injure him.

“Hey Romanoff,” he called and Natasha knew from the mocking tone of his voice that she was going to want to punch him in the face. “Don’t you think that it was pretty stupid of SHIELD to send out their best assassination asset at the Battle of New York to get her face plastered all over the news? You’re not even a melee fighter; you shouldn’t have been there.”

“Your concern is noted,” she said, not even bothering to try to play him. From what she could remember, Ward had been considered a paranoid bastard by most other specialists even before he had been revealed to be HYDRA.

“Aw, see? We’re practically getting along!”

Natasha took a moment to consider just how damn good of an actor Ward actually was. He used to have a reputation for being a stick in the mud, but she would describe the real him as being completely unhinged. Cheerful, but off his rocker. It was good for all human-kind that Tony would never get along with Ward, because he was exactly the kind of lunatic who would encourage the mad scientist.

“I’m not surprised that you’d consider trying to kill me to be getting along. From what I’ve read of your file, no one has ever cared about Grant Ward have they. That’s why you’re here, right? Because the woman you’re in love with decided to throw her lot in with Ultron.”

He didn’t rise to the bait. “There are many reasons why I’m here. Do you really think that I’m ashamed of the biggest one?”

“From what I hear, she only ever cares about you when she wants something from you. What makes you think that time is going to be any different?”

But that failed to strike home. “That’s your problem, Romanoff,” he said as he casually took a few shots in her direction. Natasha didn’t bother to move; he wasn’t actually trying to hit her, just get her to stay in one place. “You always think you know what’s going on. Which is fine in the world of espionage, but this is a whole new game, and the rules aren’t always what you expect.”

Natasha considered that. “Was that a threat?”

He smiled at her, and it was worrying not because of its insanity but for the terrifying feeling that he really could see right through her. “No. That was advice.”

Their fight resumed.

 

Skye found out pretty quickly that fighting Hawkeye was nothing like sparring with May. Mostly because May was harder.

She grabbed his arm as his fist sailed past her, using his momentum to flip him over and slam him onto the floor. He hissed in pain but didn’t stop moving, because he was a professional. Skye was also a professional-in-training, and her strength and speed had grown exponentially since she had nothing better to do at the Stark Ranch than to train and work out all day every day for a few weeks. She was a lot stronger than she had been before Puerto Rico, and it showed in the way that she was holding her own against freaking Hawkeye.

Someone, somewhere, had better be recording it to show May.

Hawkeye dived for her legs and Skye dove to block him, only to find that strength and speed were only of so much use when going up as wily as the archer. The moment she had committed to the move, she saw the spark of triumph in his eyes and mentally cursed, even as he push up, changing direction abruptly.

Skye took the punch straight to the face, and if she had the breath she would have needed to bite back a swear word. She had gotten used to taking hits since she had joined SHIELD but Hawkeye really did pack a punch. She supposed that was what came from fighting and training side by side with gods and supersoldiers. So she retaliated by sweeping her leg under the archer so he hit the ground awkwardly, cursing, before spinning to slam her elbow into his nose.

“How?” Hawkeye said incredulously as he staggered backward, narrowly avoiding the punch Skye followed up with. “Tony can hold his own against kidnappers but this is another league entirely.”

Skye spun, nearly catching him with her elbow. “You do realise that I had Colonel James Goddamn Rhodes teaching me how to defend myself since I was a kid. And then I had Melinda May as my SO.”

Hawkeye grimaced. “Okay, fine. But you are still so far out of your Dad’s league, it isn’t funny.”

“And I could never even come close to being as good an engineer as him,” she said as she kicked out at his kneecap. It connected but he kept going a lot better than she would have with barely a stagger. “What’s your point?”

Hawkeye was silent for a second as he took a swipe at her, finally replying as she sidestepped the blow. “I guess I’m kind of curious about the other half of your genetic pool. Didn’t see right to ask Tony.”

Skye rolled her eyes. “But it's okay to ask me?”

Hawkeye laughed as a kick he aimed at her connected. “What are you going to do, try and kill me?”

Skye held back a wince. Okay, so he had a point there. “Not much to tell. She and Dad had a one night stand, she gets pregnant but doesn’t inform him until after she’s married. He goes frantic trying to track her down but can’t find anything. Then eighteen months after I was born, he gets a call from China. There was a massacre in my mother’s village and I was the only human left alive. My mother and stepfather’s bodies were never found.”

It was the absolute truth of the events of her really early childhood. What it had left out was the fact that her stepfather, Cal, had apparently survived but was completely off his rocker. It had been quite a shock for her to find out that she had family out there other than her Dad, one who was apparently completely obsessed with her, even if he really did think of her as his daughter.

She had never had the chance to ask him why he hadn’t tried to find her through her biological Dad, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted the answer.

“Jeez, kid,” Hawkeye said as she caught his fist and jammed her shoulder into his to flip him over. He landed on his feet anyway. “I’m sorry I asked.”

Skye shrugged before going back in for another hit. She didn’t get it, but whatever. “Eh, that’s okay. I honestly think Dad is more traumatised by it all than I am, though that could just be because he wasn’t able to track my mother down. He takes that sort of thing a bit personally.”

“Tony,” Hawkeye said with exasperation, kicking out and catching her in the chest. She hit the ground with a hard thump and it took her a second to get her breath back.

She sprang into a crouch, doing a move she had seen in some movie once by using her back to push off the ground. “I know.”

But Hawkeye was preoccupied with other things. “How did you do that? Don’t get me wrong; May is good. But that was a Black Widow level move and I’m pretty sure Tony wouldn’t have shipped you off the the Red Room.”

“Maybe I’m a natural. Or, hey, all the conspiracy theories are right and Howard Stark was a commie spy and I’m just continuing the family tradition.”

A look of absolute horror crossed the archer’s face. “Don’t even joke about that. I don’t need any more nightmares.”

Skye felt a grin stretch her lips against her better judgement as she pressed in close to grapple with him. “You want nightmares? I’ve heard that Pepper actually works for the Chinese Ministry of State Security. Apparently she has spent more time in Beijing than you’d expect from a CEO, even one who speaks Mandarin.”

For a moment, Hawkeye didn’t reacted. Then a look of horror began to spread across his face. He paused in their fight. “Pepper. Working for the Chinese,” he repeated. “Oh, god.”

Skye snickered. “I know, right? It’s not true - probably - but can you imagine-”

“I can. All too well,” the archer cut her off. “Really regretting that now.”

Skye took advantage of the distraction to pull her head back and slam it against his. He dropped, not unconscious but definitely stunned. Skye tried to take the opportunity to knock him out, get him safely out of Ultron’s way, but Hawkeye rolled over as she attempted to grab him so that she could try.

“Please, I’ve recovered from worse head injuries than that,” he said, slurring slightly.

“Recovered is probably a strong way to put it,” Skye says drily. “You’re going up against a metal AI with a bow and arrow.”

Hawkeye grinned, looking a little bit more focused than he had before. “The world stopped making sense a long time ago. I just figured I might as well get in on the action. And what do you know? It hasn’t killed me yet.”

Skye stared at him. “That’s your standard for success, that it hasn’t killed you yet?”

Hawkeye got to his feet, surprisingly stead. “You obviously haven’t been with SHIELD long enough if it isn’t your’s.”

“Formerly,” Skye said because it was strictly true, even if it was more a resignation than a defection. “I was formerly a SHIELD agent.”

“And now you’re siding with an AI. Who are you to say that trying to take him down with a bow and arrow his wierd?”

“Someone with basic common sense,” she said drily.

“Whoa, you sounded just like Pepper then.”

Skye began to feel a drumbeat in her temples. “Do you ever shut up?” she asked.

“This from the daughter of Tony Stark?”

“Oh, for the love of god,” she snarled, the ground trembling under them again, but this time there was no control. It was an outpouring of anger, the frustration that had been building. “I am more than my genetics.”

“Really?” he said, and he had to be concussed. No one could be as stupid otherwise to say what he did then. “Cause you have the daddy issues in common at least.”

For a moment, the world seemed to freeze for Skye. The rumbling was all she could feel, but even that had slowed down. There was a rush of anger, stretching her self-control as she tried to keep her power under control. She scrabbled frantically to try and push it down even as she felt that the cause was hopeless. She felt it, the moment stretching with her patience until-

Her control snapped.

There was no sound to accompany the shockwave that exploded from her, but it's passaged could be clearly seen as it first blew Hawkeye a good twenty meter, knocking him out as his head slammed against the ground with a sickening thunk. Skye swallowed down the bile rising in her throat; she hadn’t meant to seriously injure him. Damn her powers.

But Hawkeye was only a fraction of the damage her lack of control caused. The shockwave of her powers continued rolling out, pushing aside cars parked on the side of the road, the locals waiting out the earthquake and watching her fight with the Avenger screaming in terror as some of the cars were flipped right over.

The wave kept rolling out, hitting the tall buildings that had been framing either side of the large road. Some held up fine, their construction adequate, but some were not up to snuff. Skye gaped in horror as entire buildings worth of windows shattered under the onslaught of her powers, glass plummeting and shattering on the thankfully empty footpaths. She watched the wave of destruction rolling out further and further until she lost sight of it.

She nearly threw up all she had eaten recently, namely the hotpot she had shared with Pietro earlier.

She had thought she had it under control, that she could use her power, as dearly bought as it was. She had even began to suppress the memory of Trip crumbling into dust, so that it no longer flashed across her consciousness every time she went to make a shockwave or an earthquake. She had thought- But clearly she had been wrong.

She was a danger to everyone she met. So she turned away from Hawkeye, who she didn’t particularly want to hurt, and began jogging over to the Ultron units that had been waiting patiently off to the side, ready to help her if she should need it.

“Are you okay, Skye?” Ultron asked as she got closer.

“No,” she said shortly. “But I will be. Just as soon as I really get the chance to whale on someone.”

Ultron placed a hand on her shoulder. It wasn’t gentle, and he didn’t try to talk her out of expressing her anger through violence. That would be hypocritical of him. “I could use your help.”

“What with?”

Ultron gently turned her away from the spectacle of downtown Seoul, every fourth or fifth building little more than a skeleton of its former self without the windows. “The truck is currently under attack. The twins have joined Captain America’s efforts to get the cradle.”

For a moment, Skye considered telling Ultron to stuff it. She would go off somewhere far away, where no one would ever find her. She would disappear even more throughly than Dr Banner ever had, because she wouldn’t need to stop to help other people. Staying away from everyone and everything would be helping him.

Then she realised that there was a way that she could help them, by doubling down on what she was already planning to do. No matter how much she had come to care for him, Ultron needed to be stopped. To do that, she needed to stick around and convince him that she was on his side. Only then could she go and find the most remote corner of the globe to hide away from the rest of the world in.

“Lead the way,” she said.

 

Erik was, to put it bluntly, getting too old for this nonsense.

He was an astrophysicist, not an adventurer. He had spent his time as a young man buried in books and hidden in the furthest reaches of esoteric universities. He had never done anything that could even remotely be labelled as dangerous. Then he became friends with Thor, and he was mucking about in myths and legends and magics, things that he wanted now part of, except that he couldn’t turn down a friend.

Still, the rock he was perched on was hard and no good for his back, or his knees. Or his everything really. The previous few years had given him cause to think about his own mortality, and the gross unfairness that Thor had twenty times his years and was yet in his prime, while Erik could feel the grasping hand of death reaching for him. He would be lucky if he had another decade in him, after the damage Loki controlling his mind without reference to his body’s limits or needs had done.

He refused to think about the number the mind control had done on his psyche.

Thor burst from the water, panting. It was all very dramatic and a younger, less tired Erik would have been suitably awed. But he was not feeling particularly well disposed towards Thor at that particular moment. The Asgardian had acted as though he needed Erik’s help to find the Waters of Sights, and Erik liked to think that he had helped Thor do so faster. But that was all: faster.

The real reason Erik was there was because he had been under the sway of the scepter, and Thor was scrying - the scientist in him cringed at the word - for something in particular. As loathe as Erik was to think on the awful events surrounding the Battle of New York and the fact that he would never be sure he was completely free of the scepter’s influence, he still liked to think that he would still have helped had Thor been honest.

Lightning struck Thor. Erik shielded his eyes instinctively, while the physicist inside him gibbered at the fact that there was nothing there to generate the lightning. The rest of him, that had seen wonders and horrors unlike anything his world had to offer, focused on the more pressing issue of not being struck by said lightening. Breaking the laws of nature was interesting, but Erik’s continued survival was more so.

Erik looked away, unwilling to see his friend in pain, only to catch a hint of movement on the other side of the pool. For a moment, the glare from the lightning caused spots to dance across his vision and he couldn’t see what had made the movement. Then the lightening - and Thor’s pained screams - stopped, and Erik’s night vision had a chance to reform itself, and an image from one of his nightmares formed.

Even from across the pool, it was clear that Loki was looking better than he had the last time Erik had seen him. He appeared to be in the suit he had worn in footage Erik had seen of Germany but he appeared less sallow, his hair lacked the dried grease and sweat and his eyes seemed more lively. He looked like the mischievous brother Thor clearly thought of him as, rather than the villain Erik had briefly had his free will taken away by.

And he was smiling.

“Thor,” Erik breathed out, refusing to give Loki the satisfaction of visibly panicking. Thor looked up from the waters, half turning to see Erik. He then followed Erik’s gaze and stilled.

“Loki,” he breathed, and he sounded so heartbroken, so grief-stricken, that Erik almost felt bad for the ill-will he harbored towards his friend’s brother. Almost.

“Hello, brother,” the trickster, or at least the image of the trickster said, rising gracefully from the rock it appeared to have been perching on. “Are you enjoying your hard-won knowledge?”

But Thor was more interested in something else. “Are you here? Are you alive?”

Loki gave an amused smirk. “Come now, Thor. You know that death has not been the impregnable fortress it once was for some decades now.”

Erik could not see the look on Thor’s face from behind but he imagined, from the tone of what he said next, that it was one of hope. “You are back.”

Loki laughed, and it wasn’t even sinister. Erik wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “No, I am not here to play second fiddle to you. I have more pressing matters to attend to, but I though to elucidate any visions you may not be understanding. I remember how much damage you can do when you are not in possession of all the facts.”

Erik couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “We are to believe that you are here to offer assistance?” he said, an edge to his voice. He didn’t even quiver when Loki turned his gaze on him.

“I mean to rule Asgard, jewel of the Seven Realms,” Loki said with surprising seriousness. He gave no indication that he remembered that the last time they had met, he had enslaved Erik. “I would rather not rule a ruin. In order to prevent such a thing, I believe that my interests align with my brother’s.”

“There is a threat to Asgard?” Thor said sharply. He had not said much to Erik about the vision that had prompted him to wish to find the Water of Sights, only that he had seen that there was a grave danger to his kingdom. It was interesting that Loki was claiming so too.

“You have seen the Infinity Stones?” Loki said, indicating the pool with a slight tilt of his head. The term meant nothing to Erik, but it clearly did to Thor.

“You had two in your possession.” Thor’s eyes narrowed. “I asked you once, Loki, and you did not answer but it is now more pressing: who controlled the would-be king?”

“A threat,” Loki said, ignoring the growl of annoyance in Thor’s throat. “A being who would see the universe burn, and has the strength to destroy even Asgard.”

“I need a name, Loki. I have seen too many of your tricks to trust you without it.”

The trickster smiled again, and Erik did not trust the good humor one bit. “Did my dramatic sacrifice not make you more well disposed towards me? No? Ah, brother, now is when you choose to learn caution?”

“It was a lesson hard-taught, as you well know. You cannot complain that I have finally learned what you wished I would.”

Loki grimaced. “But at such an inconvenient time.” He raised his hand to stop Thor. “No, you are correct. You will not believe me without the name, though some of your companions have already learned of the threat, or will soon.”

“Cease your riddles, Loki,” Thor said but there was no heat to it.

The trickster shot his brother a winning smile. “Now that, you know I cannot do. But I shall give you a name nonetheless.” He paused, either because he wished to be sure that he had his brother’s attention or because he was, as Darcy would say, a drama queen. “Thanos.”

The name clearly meant something to Thor. He straightened, still barechested and half submerged in the pool but appearing as though he was ready to do battle. “He has confined himself to the edges of the realms, the little travelled starways.”

“A ploy to divert attention, and a well crafted one at that. You would have been suspicious if one such as he attempted to pass beneath notice. By appearing to present only a minor threat, the real danger he poses has gone unnoticed.”

“He is searching for the Stones?”

“Yes, though not even I know to what end. Others do, or they will, but that matters little to me. All I wish-”

“Is Asgard intact to rule,” Thor completed.

Loki laughed and the darkness shifted, pulling in about him like a cloak. “Brother, there is so much of which you are not aware. No matter how much you change, you remain the same.”

When he replied, Thor sounded nonplussed. “Are you here to give me aid and explain the rest of the visions, or simply to mock me?”

Like a switch had been flipped, the amusement was gone. “What else did you see?”

“Stark, and this being he created,” Thor said, and that seemed to make sense to Loki at least. Erik wondered if that had anything to do with the destruction the Hulk had wreaked. “And-”

“Quake,” Loki interrupted, face shuttering. Erik had always known that the trickster was not the open book his brother could be but it had never been so in evidence as when he shut down his face.

“You know of her?” Thor asked and Erik wondered if he would ever really be up with what was going on. The first time he had met Thor, he hadn’t known the man was actually an alien until the battle with the Destroyer. The second time, his mind had been taken over and he hadn’t tried to find out what was going on. This third time… Actually, maybe it would be better if he just tried to stay out of things.

For one thing, if he got mind-controlled again, he would never be able to get his paper in on time.

“She is the key to the Infinity Stones,” Loki said. Erik had no idea what those were but Thor did so that was not his problem. He wondered if he could get the journal to give him an extension.

Thor, however, was clearly confused. “In what way?”

Loki smirked. “It will be obvious soon enough. When you see it, you will understand.”

Erik wondered idly if he practiced that in the mirror, then decided that he would try not to care. Because, if he did, then he was likely to get angry and that didn’t seem like a very productive idea. For whatever reason, Loki seemed to be helping them and it would never come close to erasing what he had done and all the people who had been killed in New York but it was better than the trickster actively working against them.

“Loki-”

“Thanos can never realise what she is to the Infinity Stones,” he said with more seriousness than Erik had seen on him before. “Promise me, Thor, that you will do all you can to ensure he never realises the connection.”

“She is that important?” Thor asked.

“It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of all seven realms rest with her. I have sought to give her more protection than she previously had without causing her to wonder why she is so protected, but I fear not even I will be able to keep her from harm.”

There was a moment of silence before Thor spoke. “Keep her from harm, brother? I would have thought that you would not have cared beyond Thanos.” Erik was forcibly reminded of the fact that Thor, not matter how friendly and cheerful he was, had been trained from birth to be king. Occasionally, flashes of the statesman he would become shone through.

“I may be a trickster, Thor, but fate has enough in store for Quake that there is no joy to be found in heaping on more troubles,” Loki replied after a second’s hesitation.

“That is kind of you indeed,” Thor said with no small amount of satisfaction. Erik had a terrible feeling that he was taking it as proof that there was some good left in his brother. Erik wasn’t so convinced but he suspected that there was nothing that he would be able to say to convince his friend.

Loki clearly saw Thor’s optimism as well. “Do not mistake it for kindness, brother. I too have a stake in the universe.”

“So you will help?”

The shadows that had been slowly slithering around Loki suddenly pulled in tight, so that he could not be seen, only heard. Erik didn’t think he was even still there, if he ever had been. “I will not hinder.”

Thor stared at the spot where his brother had been for a few more moments, before turning to face Erik with a small, sad grin on his face. Erik sighed.

He definitely wouldn’t be getting that paper in on time.

 

Loki looked out across the Golden Gate Bridge that the Midgardians inexplicably found interesting, as though engineering structure in order to cross large bodies of water was a new phenomenon. Once his projection into the cave that housed the Water of Sights had fully faded from the view of his brother and Selvig, he pulled out the device known as a cell phone. He selected the only number in the address book. It took  some time to pick up.

“Little busy,” came the voice at the other end.

“It will take but a moment,” Loki said.

“Make it quick then.”

Loki turned so that his face would not be caught by the image capturing device of one of the nearby Midgardians. “Thor knows there is reason to protect her, that she is the key to the Infinity Stones.”

“You didn’t tell him about-”

“No,” Loki cut him off. “It would do neither her nor him any good.”

There was a pause, and Loki could parse out the sound of scuffling on the other end before his interlocutor spoke again. “There. I have a few seconds. So, will it stop Thanos from taking her?”

Loki considered. “Hard to say. Thor will certainly slow the Chitauri down enough that aid may come. There, too, I have made arrangements.”

Loki heard a few short, sharp bangs on the other end of the line. There was distance there, so he doubted they were a threat to his ally. “Who are you sending?”

Loki knew that it was a good thing no one could see the grin spreading across his face. Thor would have known it as proof that he was preparing a particularly impressive piece of mischief. Odin would have known it as the beginning of another war. But none could see, not even his ally.

“The Winter Soldier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mysterious Loki is mysterious. Also, for those of you who have been missing Skye, she's back with a vengence in the next few chapters. Its just that other characters had to do a couple of things first.


	9. All Those Shadows Almost Killed Your Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Skye causes more property damage, Steve is pretty much indestructible and Pietro incorrigible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this is a day late, guys. Unfortunately, my internet was down so it was out of my control. Its still intermittent but hopefully it will be fine by next week. Hopefully the fact that Skye and Pietro are back in form will help make up for it.

Skye tried very hard not to look at the shattered glass that was all over the city’s paths and roads, and pretty much everywhere, really. It wasn’t quite as much damage as the Hulk had apparently done under Wanda’s influence but it was pretty bad nonetheless. Pretty much the only comfort she had, small as it was, was that she probably hadn’t killed or seriously injured anyone since an earthquake and an Avengers fight at once appeared to have done wonders for keeping the streets clear.

“Where’s the truck?” she asked, raising her voice slightly so that Ultron could hear her over the wind. It was a little demeaning to be cradled in the arms of one of his units like a child but it made flying possible, and that was a lot faster than any of the other possible modes of transportation.

“Trapped under an underpass, not too far ahead. Captain America and the twins are making it very difficult to get out.”

“What’s the status on Ward and the Black Widow?”

There was a moment of silence from Ultron as he must have searched through any camera’s still working in the city. “Unclear. The last data I have was five minutes ago, when they were still fighting. They have since gone out of range.”

Skye nodded, thinking hard about what she was going to do. She wanted the Maximoffs to be okay, to stay out of it. Pietro more than Wanda, granted, but the fact of the matter was that they would never have been in that situation if it wasn’t for her Dad. Oh, he wasn’t completely to blame about the weapons Stark Industries had sold - if it hadn’t been him it would have been someone else - but the way her Dad had reveled in the money had been uncalled for.

Her Dad had taught her the hard way that you couldn’t save someone who didn’t want to be saved. If the Maximoffs were going to fight, there was nothing that Skye could do to prevent that. She could maybe pull her punches a little, but that was about it. More accurately, that was all she would have the opportunity to do. Given the rolling nausea in her stomach from having lost control badly enough that she had accidentally used her powers, she didn’t think that she had the self-control to hold back against them.

She needed to punch something and it looked as though that was going to be Captain America.

She heard the fight before she could see it, the distinctive clang of Captain America’s vibranium shield repeatedly hitting metal echoing through the eerily empty valleys of the largely deserted city. She had heard it before, many times, both from the footage of the Battle of New York and some of what went down in DC and her grandfather’s old footage that her Dad would have destroyed if he had known it still existed.

She rapped her knuckles on Ultron’s arm lightly, wondering whether he actually felt it or if he got no feedback from the limb. “Put me down here,” she said. “I want the element of surprise.”

Here was the thing about SHIELD combat training, even for specialists: it was developed with a very limited application. It was probably better than whatever other agencies that didn’t deal with superpowers had, but it still didn’t provide much guidance on how to use earthquake superpowers against a supersoldier with an indestructible frisbee. They really needed to work on that.

The Ultron unit that was carrying Skye touched down gently a good few hundred meters away from the truck. At that distance, their arrival wasn’t likely to have been noticed but it also meant that Skye wasn’t entirely sure what was going on either. It looked as though Captain America and the Maximoffs were attempting to break into the truck and the Ultron units inside were managing to keep them out but weren't sufficient enough to be able to stop two superpower individuals and a supersoldier.

Skye slipped to the ground, feeling the low hum of the Ultron unit that had been carrying her as it slipped in to stand behind her. There was a low clank as another one came from somewhere and dropped to the ground next to the other one. Despite that, neither of them moved forward and it took Skye a few seconds to realise that they were waiting for her command. She was the one in charge of the operation.

Well, that was kind of cool.

She began to walk towards the truck, acutely aware of the two Ultrons following in step behind her. She was willing to be a lot of money that it looked impressive, her in her black combat uniform only lightly scuffed after her run-in with Hawkeye, the two gleaming Ultron units towering behind her. She felt like she was a mob boss in one of those crime movies that Bobbi loved, with her two minions flanking her to demonstrate that she was powerful enough to not have to do her own dirty work.

It wasn’t true but she suspected that if there was any cameras around to capture that image, it was going to be on the front of ‘Quake’s’ file. It was just that much of a villainous image.

It was enough to make Captain America pause as his shield thwacked back into his waiting hand, his eyes roving over her and the two Ultrons as they approached. There was something in his gaze. Questioning, maybe, or perhaps he couldn’t quite make sense of the difference between the fact that she generally looked as though she couldn’t take a particularly heavy dog and here she was being flanked by Ultrons as though she was calling the shots.

“Quake,” he said as soon as she was in earshot. The Maximoffs hadn’t seen her yet. Skye was kind of glad about that. Captain America was staring at her with solemn eyes and he had to had felt the shockwave of her power. Even if her blood wasn’t still boiling, even if she wanted to get out of it all then and there, she knew that he wouldn’t believe that she was a good guy, not after all the damage she had done.

“Captain America,” she said, feeling her lips curled up in a faint sneer, a Stark sneer. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“This doesn’t have to end badly,” he said solemnly, watching her carefully. “You don’t have fight.” His eyes flicked  briefly to the two Ultron units at her back. Did he think that they were threatening her, that the reason she wasn’t backing down was because she feared the consequences?

“What’s the matter, Cap?” she said with a grin, offering up a silent apology to Coulson. “Don’t you think that you could take me?”

“You know what Ultron’s end goal is,” he said, the emphasis a little strange. “You don’t have to help him.”

Skye felt her sneer widen, was a little bit surprised that he didn’t recognise the expression. It was totally her Dad. “Captain, you haven’t the faintest idea of anything about anything. You don’t know me, you don’t know Ultron and I’m starting to think that you don’t even know how the real world works. Top tip: optimism doesn’t change reality. Grow up.”

“Ma’am, I’m ninety-seven years old. I don't think I’m capable of growing any further.” With anyone else, it would have been a joke but Captain America’s face was solemn. “All I can do is muddle through as I am.”

Skye tilted her head. “Of course,” she said sympathetically. “It must be very difficult in the modern world,” she said. “In fact, you probably don’t even know how to use a cell phone or a tablet.” Skye let out a sharp laugh. “Let me guess: Iron Man totally fell for that, didn’t he?”

“You really don’t like him, do you?” Captain America said sadly. Skye didn’t get why Jemma thought he looked like a kicked puppy, but it certainly caused a twinge of guilt.

“I don’t see how that’s any business of your’s,” Skye said calmly. It rather felt as though she had been going in circles, having this same conversation with Avenger after Avenger. Did they ever actually have conversations and share information? There were things Skye needed to do, namely find out Ultron’s plan and stop him, and that would be so much easier if she didn’t have to keep talking about her Dad.

Captain America grimaced. “I think we got off on the wrong foot-”

Skye laughed. “Brilliant deduction, Holmes.”

For a second, something sparked in his eyes. “Elementary, my dear Watson,” he snarked back with a grin, catching Skye by surprise. Huh. Apparently he had a sense of humor. Coulson needed to never find that out or else he might faint. “Look, Quake, there are other ways to achieve what you’re trying to achieve; you don’t have to do it this way.”

Skye felt her molars lock together as she ground her teeth. “You know, people really need to stop telling me what I can and can’t do, and how to think about Tony Stark, for that matter. Besides, you clearly had no problem allying with the Maximoffs, and they definitely hate him more than I do.”

"The difference is-" He cut himself off. Clearly he thought that whatever he had been about to say would have angered her more than she already was.

"It doesn't matter," Skye said, more gently than she felt. Her anger from being pushed by Hawkeye so that she lost control of her power had been simmering away in the background despite her best efforts. "You're not going to persuade me otherwise. So get away from that truck and stop trying to prevent us from leaving or I will force you."

"Ma'am, I've been threatened by much scarier people than you and they all found out that I'm far too stubborn to give up, whether it would be smart or not."

Of course he was. Coulson had generally avoided fanboying over Captain America in front of the junior agents but Skye had seen and heard enough to confirm all her Dad's bitter stories about how he was such a good man that Howard had cared more about finding his dead body than watching his living son grow.

Skye didn't give Captain America any warning, any chance to counter what she was about to do. She focused her mind on the simmering anger in her gut, heating it up by remembering Hawkeye's insult. Like a boiling pot of pasta, her anger went from slightly bubbling to boiling over in a flash.

The blast of energy clearly caught Captain America of guard, picking him up and slamming him against one of the concrete pylons next to where the truck was parked. Skye saw Pietro skid to a stop, narrowly avoiding being bodyslammed by the bulk of Captain America's muscles. Pietro was pretty fit himself, probably a consequence of running everywhere and using so much energy, but it was clearly the body of a runner. Captain America had muscles that wouldn't look out of place on a statue of Greek God, as Jemma had often noted.

All movement around the truck ground to a halt as both twins looked as Captain America in surprise and the Ultron units took the opportunity of their distraction to fall back so as to better protect the cradle. There was a moment of silence as the pylon that had Captain America embedded a decent way in began to creak swaying slightly. Everything and everyone in the underpass was still, holding their breath where applicable and simply waiting to see what would happen.

The sound of slow cracking echoed into the silence, the ominous sound taking a moment to penetrate brains and processors, not even Ultron's hardware quick enough to make the connections. Then all hell broke loose. All the Ultron units moved as one for the truck, slamming into it with as much momentum as possible, trying to get it out from under the road above as quickly as possible.

Pietro was also trying to get out from under the impending destruction - and he could move much faster, but he was hampered by the fact that he had to stop to pick up his sister before he could get out of the way. Skye for her part, was already running at full tilt for the open sky, catching sight of Captain America from the corner of her eye as he attempted to pull himself out of the hole he had broken in  the pylon. He came out with a plop.

The pylon, the road above them, it all trembled helplessly. It took Skye a few seconds to realise that it had been the supersoldier that had prevented it from falling when he had first hit, by acting as a pull for the hole he had created. Much of the weight from that pylon must have been leaning on his frame and, without him there, the weight had nowhere to go and nothing to do but to give in to gravity.

The pylon cracked at its thinnest point, where Captain America’s bulk had taken the most out of it. Though Skye couldn’t see much of the crack directly, she saw the moment when it broke, the pylon separating, the bottom staying where it was while the top slipped so that the cracked part skidded out through the path of least resistance: the hole that had, until recently, been occupied by a supersoldier.

It was as though Skye was watching the whole disaster occurring in slow motion, as the road above wobbled ominously before slowly and majestically bowing to gravity and plummeting to the space below. The shockwave came covered in dust, shoving it down her throat until she was choking on it, coughing hard in a desperate attempt to both dislodge the foreign matter in her lungs and to suck in enough oxygen to survive.

Its a good few seconds before she is aware enough to look at what was going on around her, and not a moment too soon. No sooner did her head move than she was ducking a piece of concrete thrown right at her head. Skye dived with an undignified squawk that would have even drawn a roll of the eyes from May. Damnit, she was better than that.

Rolling to her feet, Skye's eyes automatically swept the area in that unfocused way May had taught her, the better to let it all in without preconceived notions. There was still enough dust around to make the task of figuring out where everyone else was at difficult. The only one she could say with any certainty was Wanda, who was less than ten meters to her left and obviously the one who had tossed the concrete at Skye's head.

When the former SHIELD agent shot her a glare, the Sokovian gave her a slight one-shoulder shrug. They had only seen each other briefly and hadn't spoken much at all. Skye had turned out to get along terrifyingly well with Pietro but she had spent far too little time with Wanda to know if the same held true for his twin. At any rate, the telekinetic was clearly more than willing to help Skye maintain her cover with Ultron, even if that did mean throwing pieces of concrete at her head.

Well, there was only one way Skye could deal with that.

Skye was moving almost before her mind had realised what she had decided. She had noticed earlier and was reminded again of the fact that her body seemed to be moving much faster than she was used to. It was almost as though it had gotten a boost and her mind was taking a bit of time to catch up. She wasn't complaining,exactly, she just wasn't sure that she really wanted more changes to her body so soon after gaining superpowers that she never wanted.

Wanda was very fast, though. Not as fast as Skye, but she still managed to duck under Skye's puch, if only just. Skye had just a moment to wonder if she too had gotten some boosts on obtaining her superpowers before her mind snapped back to the present issues. She brought her knee up, ready to catch Wanda in the gut, but it never connected.

It took even her fast mind a second to catch-up, to work out why the words was speeding past and what had knocked the breath right out of her lungs. Pietro. He stopped after less than a few seconds and, unsecured by his arms, the abrupt change in his speed versus her momentum sent her flying another twenty meters, a graceful soar until she came crashing down to the ground with a gasp of pain.

"Do all you Americans have some kind of selective amnesia when it comes to superpowers?" Pietro asked with exasperation. "I run. That is literally all I do. How hard is that to remember?"

While he had been speaking, Skye had been trying to get her breath back and to pick herself up off the floor but lost what little ground she had made as his complaints forced the laughter to bubble up out of her and she dropped back to the ground.

"Sorry," she said, still short of breath. She managed to push herself into a sitting position. "I thought your superpower was sarcasm."

He grinned for a second before he obviously remembered that he was meant to be acting as though they were enemies, though Skye couldn't see any Ultron units in the vicinity. By her count, they had brought eight with them and they were at least down one, if not more, given that Captain America would have needed to take out the one driving to bring the truck to a stop.

"Don't make me laugh," Pietro mock-glared at her, bringing her back to the present. "I'm trying not to tip your hand to Ultron but there's no one around. Don't you want to play?"

Skye stared at him, puzzled. "Play?"

"Play." He blurred and Skye looked around for a few seconds before she registered the warm breath on her neck. "Come on, it will be fun."

It took Skye a few seconds to realise what was going on. She laughed. "Pietro Maximoff, are you flirting with me in the middle of an epic battle?"

"Depends. Is it working?" Skye couldn't help another laugh. She felt something loosen in her, something about her heart that had been tight since she had quit SHIELD, even if Coulson totally knew what she was up to. She had a friend, one who would still play-flirt with her in the middle of a battle even when they were on opposite sides. It was a good feeling.

"That depends too, depends on what you're trying to do. Delay me from tossing you into a concrete pylon? Well done. But if you're trying something else..."

"Now I'm offended," the speedster said as he appeared in front of her. He didn't look offended in the slightest.

"That you might be trying something else?"

"That you can't tell I'm about to ask you out for dinner," Pietro said with a grin. "You were a SHIELD agent, were you not? Are they all as unperceptive as you?"

Skye's brain stuttered to a stop. "Wait you're asking me out?"

"You're very slow at the moment," Pietro said still grinning. He blurred forward to bop her slightly on the head, a clear tease, before blurring out of her reach again. Skye was too stunned to try to retaliate. He seemed to realise that he had thrown her for a loop. "Of course I'm asking you out. You are hilarious and intelligent and awesome." He paused. "It also doesn't hurt that you're hot."

He was doing so well right up until that last comment. Skye made a noise that clearly telegraphed her annoyance. "I'm covered in concrete dust and I've been knocked around a fair bit in the past few days."

The cheerfulness didn't leave him. He made  show of looking her up and down. "Hot," he pronounced with the mock solemnity of a priest pronouncing a couple wed. It was so out of place that Skye began laughing too hard to complain. It took her a good twenty seconds to regain her composure.

"You are incorrigible," she told him but she knew that the smile was still tugging at her lips so there was no way he was going to take it as an admonishment.

"Exactly." he brightened. "So you know that I won't stop pestering you until you say yes."

Skye mock glared at him. "You know that's harassment, right?"

"Yes," he said, "And if you really didn't like it, you would, well, toss me into a pylon." He grinned and Skye remembered that her sum total of her first impression of him basically boiled down to : trouble, the fun kind. Oh, what the hell.

"Once Ultron's been.. dealt with," she said, ignoring the way her stomach swooped at the thought, "I will go on a date with you," she said, trying to pull together Pepper's composure, the kind that managed to keep her Dad cheerful but less manic than he could have been.

It didn't work. Pietro whooped - way to be cool - and brushed a kiss onto her cheek so quickly that Skye doubted that anyone else would have seen it. She had always thought that kisses on the cheek were basically anti-romantic, the death knell of a relationship. That one wasn't. She didn't know if it was something they taught the guys in Sokovia but it was such a promise, such a small dose of something that they both wanted that it left her wanting more.

"You have made me the happiest man in Seoul," he said pulling back. It might have been too deep for only the agreement for a first date but he managed to keep it light. She pushed down the feeling that he meant it more than she was immediately comfortable with.

"I just caused millions of dollars of damage in Seoul," she said, continuing the light tone. "That is not a high bar to set."

"The bar does not matter," he said and was he... urgh. He was batting his eyelashes exaggeratedly at her. Skye was already regretting agreeing, except that she wasn't.

She began to push herself to her feet. "You're hilarious," she said drily. "Such a shame that humour isn't all that helpful in the middle of a fight."

"It has stopped you from swatting me like a bug so far, has it not?" he said with a wink. "Unfortunately, Captain America does not have my tactical prowess."

"You just wanted to work the word prowess into the conversation, didn't you?" Skye said, quickly flitting her eyes around the battlefield, trying too quickly take stock of what was going on before returning her attention to Pietro.

She didn't think that his grin could get any wider, and then it did. "Well, since you brought up my prowess, allow me to tell you-" He was cut off as Skye hit him lightly at chest height with a blast of her shockwaves. It was light enough that it only made him skid back a few paces but it was clearly still enough to drive the breath from his body, stopping him from continuing.

"No, I don't think I'll allow it," she said, once again aiming for haughty and missing due to the stupid, slightly dopey, grin that just would not leave her face.

Pietro's smile had been knocked from his face but it was a matter of mere seconds before he had his breath back and the grin was back with a wicked edge to it and a matching gleam in his eye. "Finally, you want to play."

Skye wanted to say something about how it wasn't a game, Pietro, how a lot of people's lives were at stake, but she also didn't want to ruin the moment. So she flicked her eyes over the scene again, taking everything in better that time and felt a shard of ice stab her heart as she saw that one of the Ultron units - the main one - was turned towards them. She reacted on instinct, every fiber of her being telling her that she needed to deflect suspicion.

The second shockwave caught Pietro in roughly the same place as the first one had, but there was much more power behind that one. Skye hadn’t been trying to hurt him, nothing close to it. It had just been her hindbrain knowing that it wasn’t a good idea for Ultron to see the two of them appearing to be friendly. She wasn't even thinking about trying to save the world; she simply wasn't thinking at all. There was no control there.

Pietro went soaring, and for a moment Skye thought that he was going to land badly and hit something. Then a blur of blue and white shot towards him from one side, a tiny crackle of red energy still visible around him. It caught Pietro, changing his trajectory as the two of them - for it was Captain America - tucked into a tight ball to roll the landing.

Skye let out a shaky breath. She had been able to control her powers and instincts in that abandoned ship in Africa, but she was starting to think that had been down to the sense of control she had felt due to having the element of surprise. Now that everyone knew to expect her and her powers, she felt... wild even though there wasn't much they could do short of killing her if she really let loose.

Maybe that was the real problem: her powers were on the wrong scale. She was a walking, talking natural disaster and that gave her muscle but it was a matter of too much muscle. She couldn't just knock someone off their feet; she had to send them flying. She was someone who would probably do better in a full scale war - god, not that she wanted to be in one - but it would allow her to really cut loose and use her powers to their full potential.

Skye was in the wrong league, even when going up against the Avengers. If she had earthquake powers during the Battle of New York, she probably would have been far more useful than any of them. That was the kind of scale she needed: alien invasions. Again, it wasn't that she wanted aliens to invade, it was just that she wouldn't feel as though she was really living up to her potential until she had to deal with something on that scale.

She tore her gaze away once she was sure that Pietro was okay, just in time to duck an energy blast from his sister. That time, she managed to avoid a projectile from Wanda without making an embarrassing noise and Skye couldn't help the small feeling of accomplishment blossoming in her chest. It was a small improvement but it was still an improvement, and Skye had felt as though much of the day had been about he backsliding; her control getting worse and losing her temper at Hawkeye chief among them.

She wondered briefly whether Wanda was actually trying to retaliate for Pietro before deciding that it didn't matter. They - all of them who were aware that Skye was there to stop Ultron - had to make a good show of it. If it was real, then it would simply be all the more convincing. If it wasn't, Skye would still have to react as though it was.

Skye briefly considered sending a shockwave at Wanda but before she had a chance to decide, she felt a stirring of the air around her and diver out of the way just in time to avoid a hail of bullets. Her training kicked in, counting the bullets. Enough bullets that it had be be at least semi-automatic, nowhere near enough for it to be machine-gun fire. Handguns, decent clip. Proper guns, the kind proper fighters used. Could be Ward, but he wouldn't miss.

Skye moved as fast as she could for cover behind one of the large slabs of roadway, half hanging off the road above them. It didn't look very secure but it would provide decent cover from the person who was shooting at her. Even without the use of her powers, none of the bullets his Skye as she scrambled across, a fact that she only appreciated once she was there.

Her back to the concrete, she looked out across the road. Flashes of red light a few hundred meters to the right marked the location where one of the Ultron units were fighting Wanda. Another two were fighting Captain America ducking and spinning away from the SHIELD, while two more pushed the truck, trying to get it out and away from the fight. Something must be wrong with the vehicle itself if they weren't driving.

That still left one Ultron and one person unaccounted for, and she caught sight of them barely twenty meters away just in time to see Pietro dig his hands into the wiring of the seventh and last Ultron unit. For a moment, their eyes met and he winked, no hard feelings there. Then he smiled and ripped out the wiring of of of her brother's units.

The world vibrated in a way that no one else could see. It was odd to Skye that it had only been a few weeks since her powers had forced her to begin to sense the vibrations of the universe, the way that it moved, was always moving. Some moments, it seemed like she had never felt it before. Others, like she always had. There was so much there that no one else could feel and that was strange to her. But not as strange as what she saw as Pietro wrecked the Ultron unit.

A cord, or at least something that's closest relative was a cord, snapped. It was a sickly, greeny-orange hue but yet had no real colour, could not really be seen at all. It was something that existed but no one else could see, that Skye herself hadn't been able to see until it was broken. For a moment, Skye had no idea what it was, and then it hit her.

It was the connection.

She hadn't thought about how Ultron had been directing the units, had thought maybe some kind of signal, but she could see it and that was not any kind of technology that her Dad had, and she doubted it was something that Ultron had had time to come up with in the few days since he was created. The chill she had felt down her spine was back because, now that she looked harder, she was that the orange was actually closer to the red of ultron's eyes, of their Dad's suit. The red was Ultron. The green was the stone from the sceptor.

And the connection was not based upon the red parts.

Then it was gone, the connection visible only briefly while severed and had faded from her sight too. All she could see was the Ultron unit as it crashed to the ground, Pietro springing off its back just in time to land on his feet. He sent her another grin but Skye didn’t have it in her to respond. Her mind was spinning; she had suspected that the stone had influence on Ultron but, if she was right, only the main Ultron unit didn’t owe its animation to the stone. The rest only moved because the stone allowed Ultron to broadcast his intentions. The question was: could the stone move them on its own?

Skye tensed. Ultron needed to know, she needed to warn him. Even if he was trying to cause a mass extinction, to narrow the world down to the strongest, he needed to know what the stone was doing. That it was, in fact, capable of trying things. Maybe it was that she was thinking so hard about it, but she felt as though she could feel it slithering about in her thoughts, the cold and hard presences so completely unlike her own thoughts. It felt-

A click next to her ear. Skye had been thinking too hard about problems that were not immediate. Not the smartest thing to do in the middle of a fight. May would not be impressed that someone had got the drop on her, if she made it out of it alive. She whipped her head around to see who it was, how she could possibly fight back.

Natasha Romanoff had a gun to her head. She was already squeezing the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before everyone gets into all the sqeeing over Skye/Pietro, I’m still not sure they’re the end game. I didn’t intend to have any romance in this first fic but then Pietro was a flirt and he likes Skye a lot and is inappropriate enough to ask her out in the middle of a battle. Also, urgh, fight scenes. I'm happier with this one but I still find them a pain.


	10. Are We In The Clear Yet?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Skye is saved, Ward is annoying and no one really wins the fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I'm in the position of having to apologise for a late chapter. My internet provider has assured me that it will be fully fixed by the end of the week but, well, we'll see. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the chapter, even if it is a few days late.

The Black Widow was squeezing the trigger.

Only one thought passed through Skye’s mind, a singularity of purpose she hadn’t realised that she had never felt before. It was as though there had always been someone nattering away at the back of her mind, for so long that she had forgotten the voice was even there, and it had finally shut up. Or perhaps it was that it thought the exact same thought as Skye, to the point where the were indistinguishable.

No!

The thought echoed strangely in her mind, as though it had suddenly gotten larger, as though there was more mind for her to think in but her thoughts hadn’t gotten any bigger. In a flash, the echo had built to a busting point, until it was ringing all through her head, building and building until Skye thought that she would go mad from the sound. Still it kept bouncing back and around still building until, at last, something snapped.

The Black Widow’s finger froze on the trigger.

It had felt as though the rush of noise in her head had taken forever but she realised, as the world sped up again, that it had taken a fraction of a second. That noise had been all in her mind and so she had been operating at the speed of thought rather than the speed at which a human body could process and react to the rest of the world.

There was a crackling sound, almost like ice, as the vivid blue began to grow in the Black Widow’s eyes like a timelapse video of frost growing on a window. Skye wouldn’t say that it was the weirdest thing she had ever seen - that was the time her Dad had come over all manic and decided to actually make pizza, only he thought that when people said that they nuke things he thought they meant with an actual nuke rather than a microwave - but it was definitely top ten. The colour reminded her of something, though…

Goddamn. The stone. The colour was the same as the colour shown on the stills from security footage of Hawkeye while he had been under Loki’s control. Skye was suddenly really glad that she had gone snooping so that she could better understand what had happened to Coulson. Ignorance might have been nice, though she probably would have figured it out when she had seen Dr Cho earlier. Still, she was pretty damn scared.

The stone could put people under its control at a distance, and it could do it all on its own. No one could deny that was pretty terrifying.

Skye stared at the black widow, wondering if anything was going to happen, but the woman stared at her, the trigger still half squeezed. It took Skye an embarrassingly long time to put two and two together and to realise that the mind controlled woman was waiting for orders. Skye’s orders. Oh god, she had just been the catalyst for the Black Widow losing her ability to control herself. There was no way that was going to end well.

“Release the trigger,” Skye said, reluctant to actually use the advantage she had but knowing that a single jolt to the Avenger might cause the trigger to be full squeezed. Whatever else was going on, Skye was hardly going to let herself die. She almost didn’t think that it would work for a second as the Black Widow stayed immobile.

Then the pressure she had on the trigger slowly began to ease, Skye’s breathing following suit. Once the small action was accomplished, the Black Widow went right back to her statue imitation. It was completely different from what had been reported in the files from New York and what Skye had seen after Ultron had used the scepter on Dr Cho. In all those cases, the subjects had continued to act, just differently than they otherwise would. Skye wondered if that was because there had been a being with intention behind taking over their mind rather than a stone… reacting.

At any rate, the Black Widow seemed to be responding to Skye’s instructions so she was hoping that her presumed ability to be able to track down the other’s like it meant that the stone wasn’t going to make the former Russian assassin kill her. It didn’t seem a likely scenario anyway but then an Avenger had been stopped in her track by a stone a good few hundred meters away. Likely wasn’t really a consideration anymore.

“Given me the gun,” Skye said, testing the limits. The Black Widow did so immediately, efficiently if mechanically. Skye would bet that there was no thought involved at all, even distorted thought as had been the case for the others. It was as though Skye was speaking directly into the other woman’s brain and that was what was causing her to obey. “Can you speak?” she asked, testing the limits.

“Yes.”

Skye thought about what she wanted to know. “Is Coulson listening?”

“Yes.”

Skye pushed off the concrete, trying to ignore the flash of panic that came once she no longer had something solid at her back. She leaned in close to the Black Widow. Or, more accurately, she leaned into her earpiece. It wasn’t like the one that Skye had from Simmons, one that was implanted in her. She supposed that Coulson wasn’t contacting her via that so that Ultron wouldn’t pick up on any frequencies. But he was listening to the Black Widow’s and there was something that they all really needed to know.

“The stone is alive.”

She pulled back. There was so much that she wanted to tell coulson but what she wanted most of all was his advice, his reassurance that everything would be okay eventually. Since she couldn’t have that, Skye would rather have nothing at all. Besides, while the Black Widow was no longer about to shoot her, they were still in the middle of a fight and the Avenger was mind controlled.

“Do you have an exit strategy?” Skye asked.

“Yes,” came the reply again, in that same strange monotone.

“You will go there,” Skye said. “Once you are sure that you are completely safe, you will hit your head hard enough to knock you out but not enough to do any damage.”

From what Skye could remember, the only known full-proof way to clear out the mind control from the stone was to literally knock it out of them, though she really didn’t want to know how that was affected by the fact that the stone didn’t have to be close to the person it was putting under its control. At any rate, her instructions should be enough for the Black Widow to safely get out from under that control.

For a moment, the Black Widow didn’t react and Skye felt her stomach swoop. Maybe the stone was interfering, had decided that the Avenger was a serious threat to Skye and wasn’t going to let her go. Then the other woman spun around stiffly and began walking away, luckily in the opposite direction from where the main fighting between the Ultron units, Captain America and the Maximoffs was going down. Skye hadn’t thought of that, though she breathed a sigh of relief. The Black Widow was going to be okay, and hopefully Coulson and SHIELD would be sufficiently warned about the crazily terrifying stone.

A tiny scuff had her spinning around, heart beating wildly as the hand that held the Black Widow’s gun snapped up. The man froze before slowly raising his arms. For a second, Skye had the crazy urge to shoot at him, again, and to do it right that time. After all, he was the one who was meant to be keeping the Black Widow distracted.

She lowered the gun. “What happened to the best scores since Romanoff?”

“Espionage scores, Skye,” Ward said, lowering his hands. “I don’t get to train against Captain America or Thor.”

Skye smirked. “So you’re admitting that she’s better than you?”

“Yes, Skye. When someone is better than me, I admit it.” Even that little dose of humility didn’t seem to be doing much for wiping the smirk off his face as he propped his shoulder up against an upright block of concrete. In the middle of a battle.

“Was there something you wanted?” she asked in exasperation.

“Romanoff went easily,” he said. The smirk didn’t falter, nothing in his face changed, but Skye couldn’t help but get the impression that his thoughts were darkening.

“I suppose,” she hedged. He had to have seen what had happened, given his reaction. She wasn’t sure why she felt defensive about that.

He let out a long, deep sigh unlike anything she had ever heard from Grant Ward before. “You need to be careful.”

Skye felt her teeth begin to grind again, almost without her permission. “I can look after myself.”

The smirk was still there, though it was a lot fainter. “Oh, I know. Just be careful how you go about doing that. You might be surprised how quickly people lose faith in you.”

Skye scoffed. “It’s not like-”

“You’re HYDRA?” Ward cut in. “No. But you are helping an omnicidal robot.”

“AI,” Skye corrected automatically. “But point taken,” she said grudgingly.

“Yeah, just be careful about using mind control,” Ward said. “Some people might not take too kindly to the idea that you can do that.”

Skye couldn’t help stiffening. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right, because the Black Widow would just suddenly decide to do as you tell her,” Ward said, clearly bemused.

There wasn’t really anything to say to that so Skye tried - and failed - to suppress a huff as she turned to survey the rest of the battle. It was pretty much as she had last seen it. Captain America, Wanda, Ultron, the truck. There was only one difference: that Pietro had taken down the Ultron unit he was fighting, and was looking at her - or maybe Ward - with a frown on his face. For a moment, their eyes locked and Skye wondered if he too had seen what had happened but then his eyes flickered over to Ward.

Ah.

“Interesting,” Ward said and Skye almost punched him for the mildly interested tone that somehow managed to convey his complete superiority. “I suppose Maximoff asked you out then.”

“You have no place to be jealous, no right-”

“I’m not jealous,” he cut in. Damn him, but his voice was calm so she couldn’t even call him on what had to have been a lie.

She tried anyway. “Do you really expect me to believe that?”

Ward continued to watch her steadily. Of all the creepy things he had done over the years, that was one of the creepiest. “Believe what you like, Skye. I’m not jealous.”

“The fact that you followed me half-way around the world doesn’t help your case if you’re claiming that you’re over me.”

“I’m not.” He pushed off the piece of concrete, leaning closer. Skye refused to back down. “I just don’t consider Quicksilver to be a threat.”

Skye couldn’t help but scoff. “You aren’t even in the game, Ward.”

“On the contrary,” he grinned, pushing in even closer. “I am always in the game.”

Skye grit her teeth. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but everything he did seemed to rub her the wrong way. Oh, she knew he was up to something but it almost felt as though he knew something she didn’t, something important, and that he was laughing at her. That was why she hated dealing with Ward so much, the fact that he always acted as though he was so very superior to Skye even as he moved heaven and earth in his obsession with her.

"How about you keep your head in this game and actually fight the fight you're involved in?"

Ward glanced around. "We're winning," he said succinctly. "I don't see any threats."

Thwack.

Skye blinked at the sound, a natural human reaction. It was quick, but in the miniscule space of time between closing her eyelids and reopening them again, Pietro had appeared behind Ward. Ward, for his part, had his eyes roll up into his head in a way that couldn't possibly be voluntary. He slumped forward, unconscious, and there was such a look of satisfaction on Pietro's face that Skye was forcibly reminded of the fact that he had been a street kind and he had been a street kind Sokovia. That was not something that he would have survived without being tough and willing to do what was necessary.

"Was that really necessary?" she asked drily.

"He is annoying," Pietro said, clearly trying to keep his voice light but failing to hide the edge. Skye really, really hoped that Pietro didn't see Ward as a threat either. If the two of them thought that it was a good idea to fight over her, that doing so was something that would endear them to Skye, they would simply have to learn otherwise when Skye dropped the both of them like hot coals.

Skye did not do drama in romantic relationships. Ever. She got enough of that from her non-romantic relationships.

"There are other ways of settling your differences, you know. Words, for example," Skye said, proud that she had succeeded in keeping her voice light where Pietro had failed.

"But I grew up on the streets, my parents were dead and could not teach me good manners," he said, widening his eyes. "How else would I treat an enemy?"

Skye snorted. "You're full of it, that's what you are."

Pietro brightened. "See? You understand me so well."

"Fantastic. Now, I'm trying to stop Ultron, and I can't do that if you keep trying to blow my cover by flirting with me." Skye tried to glare him into submission and failed spectacularly. He grinned. "Stop being so friendly."

"But I'm always freindly, at least with beautiful women," he protested, winking at her. "There's nothing at all suspicious about that."

Skye buried her face in her hands. "Oh my god, you're worse than Hunter."

"Who's Hunter?" Pietro asked, puzzlement and curiosity plain as day in his voice.

"A friend," Skye replied. "And someone who I hope you will never meet."

"Handsome devil, is he?"

Skye snorted. "He's annoying, that's what he is. A friend but not someone I would ever want to be compared to, and you shouldn't either."

Pietro, unfortunately, looked delighted. "I shall have to meet him someday, then."

Skye was just about to respond when, over his shoulder, she caught sight of one of the Ultron units breaking away from the fight against Captain America and begin to move towards her and Pietro. Skye felt her heart jump to her stomach, even as she saw that Captain America was beginning to win his fight.

"Listen," she said, voice urgent. "You need to know that Ultron can easily shift from unit to unit and you need to destroy all of the units to completely erase him. Taking the cradle would only slow him down and piss him off."

"It could limit his damage."

Skye couldn't help but make a sound of annoyance. "But you wouldn't know what the damage was intended to be, so you couldn't protect it as well as you could." Skye tried to search her mind for a metaphor, a way to make him understand. She had one, but she doubted that computer-dumb Pietro would get it. "Okay, you might not get it but you need to explain it this way to Tony Stark-"

Pietro made a noise of protest. "I want nothing to do with him."

"Tough, because you're cooperating with his team," she said before getting back to the issue at hand. "You need to tell him that it's like hacking the network of a government agency. You don't just go blaring that you managed it. You wait until you find all you need to know to completely stop them, to tear out all the rotten offshoots. As opposed to just finding weapons and then completely missing out on the fact that they were made by HYDRA."

Pietro cocked his head as he considered. "I have no idea what you are talking about but I have a feeling that it will piss off Stark, no?"

"Oh, yeah," Skye said and she couldn't help the little thrill as she thought of just how close to home that was going to hit for her Dad. "Too bad, so sad."

Pietro sniggered. "Very well, I will pass on the message. Is there anything else we should know?"

Skye briefly considered telling him that Ultron was probably going back to Sokovia but then figured that he knew that anyway. The Avengers would do what they wanted with that piece of information. Even if what they wanted was something stupid, there was nothing that she could do to stop it. So she was just going to have to suck it up and do the best that she could in the situation that she was given.

"No," she said, careful that there be no long pause between the question and her response. Even though she wanted desperately to send reassurances to all her teammates back at SHIELD, to tell Coulson that she was okay and that she was looking forward to returning home, that she was starting to have far more control over her powers and that she wasn't as much of a threat as she used to be, she knew that she couldn't say that.

It wasn't just that Ultron might overhear, either. It just wasn't professional. Skye was - or had been - a SHIELD agent and that meant that she had to be careful at all times. Skye wanted to be a credit to the organisation that her friends but most importantly Coulson were trying to build. She wanted to prove that she deserved to be there, that she deserved to be an agent despite the fact that he had never gone to the Academy, despite the fact that she used to be anti-SHIELD and above all despite the fact that she now had extremely dangerous superpowers.

Pietro looked at her, opened his mouth to say something and then snapped it shut, evidently thinking better of it. He nodded, more solemn than Skye had seen him before, then he went and ruined it with a wink. Skye got the message. 'I'll see you at the end of this,' he was saying, 'and then you and I are going on that date.' Typical Pietro.

And then he was gone, leaving Skye standing next to an unconscious Ward. She briefly considered just leaving him there before realising that she was better than him largely because he would totally do that to someone he wasn't obsessed with. She bent down, hooked her hands under his arms and hauled at him, hoping that she had the muscle to move his bulk.

Ward came so easily that Skye staggered back, nearly losing her footing. She blinked. He didn't look as though he had lost much weight, none at all in fact. Then why was he lighter? Well, there were two factors in the equation. Ward weight seemed to be largely unchanged, which meant that either the parameters such as the force gravity was exerting had changed - Skye wasn't prepared to rule anything out given the strangeness of the previous few years but nothing else seemed to have been effected - or Skye had gotten much stronger.

Come to think of it, her fight against Hawkeye had been much easier than it should have been.

Okay, preliminary hypothesis: Skye was stronger. Actually, she could put more bounds on it than that, she had gotten much stronger than the last time she had used all her strength, trying to escape Whitehall before-

Before she had gotten a superpower.

But what if it was more than that? Raina had undergone a complete physical change, according to Jemma. She had become spiky all over, and maybe that was the thing. Skye had been thinking about the superpowers as though something had been added to her mix of skills. Something that she couldn't easily control, it was true, but something that had been added nonetheless.

Maybe it was something added. Maybe it was everything had changed, it just happened to still appear on the surface as though she was as she had always been. But Skye suddenly had a terrifyingly plausible idea for why she could move Ward when she would have really struggled before: her transformation had changed her in other ways, ways that weren't as immediately obvious when she lost control. Ways like being stronger than she had ever been before.

As soon as the whole debacle with Ultron was over, Skye was going to go find out exactly what had happened to her and what she could expect. Even if it meant travelling to the far edges of the galaxy to track down the Kree that had apparently made people like her, Skye was going to find out what had happened to her. And then she was going to fix it.

Apparently having superpowers wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Frankly, having no idea what was actually happening to her body was pretty damn scary. It was the kind of thing that could give her nightmares. What if she woke up one day and she looked like Raina had? Or maybe there was now something in her that the Infinity Stone had latched onto and one day she was going to wake up and find perfect clarity, that the stone had taken her over?

That wasn't even the Stark paranoia talking. Skye had no earthly idea what was going to happen to her and it terrified her.

But terror was going to have to wait, as it was no excuse for acting like Ward. She needed to get him at least a little out of the way and she was having no trouble hauling him around so she moved her hands out from under his arms and slipped them further around so that she was encircling the unfair amount of muscles that formed his chest so that, with a solid heave, she could push him up against the concrete pillar he had been having so much fun leaning against earlier.

It wasn't as completely out of the way as Skye's morals would have prefered, but it was the best that she could do on short notice. She looked back to where the fighting was occurring and blanched. What had been individual fights had merged, Ultron having realised that his strength was that his units would work together far more readily than Captain America and his two very new allies.

The unit that had been coming towards her as she and Pietro had talked must have rejoined the fight once Pietro had, secure in the knowledge that she wasn't spilling secrets. Or perhaps sure that she was safe, but Skye was trying very hard not to think about that. She needed to fight and, at this point, she needed to fight on Ultron's side. But thinking about him that way would only make it all the more difficult when she reached the point where she had to fight against him.

She took a deep breath and began walking. She kind of wished that she had Pietro's power. She felt like a bit of an idiot striding dramatically towards the fight, and it only served to heighten her nerves. She supposed that she could try to sneak up on the fighters, the way that the Black Widow had on her, but she wasn't sure that she could pull it off, particularly since there wasn't a lot of cover over where the fight was actually taking place.

None of the fighters acknowledged her approach as she broke into a jog, giving her the chance to watch them carefully and work out what was going on. The odds were already on Ultron's side, since he had four units remaining and he was only up against three people. More than than, Wanda was beginning to sag slightly, from exhaustion or an injury Skye couldn't tell from so far away.

On the other hand, Captain America didn't seemed to be tired at all, and Pietro was still whizzing around without any problems. Skye glanced over at the truck. Ultron had more or less given up trying to get it away; all he was doing was defending it against the other three. Skye didn't like that idea. That meant that he was desperate, and desperation never led to anything good, whether the person who was desperate was human or not.

All of which meant that the best course of action for Skye was to make Ultron feel less desperate.

Skye watched the patterns of movement as she stalked closer. Captain America didn't have much of a range and he was doing okay against one Ultron unit but he was contained for the moment. Wanda had a larger range but could still be countered. No, against all odds, it was Pietro who was doing the most damage. There wasn't much force behind his blows but they were too fast to be either anticipated or countered. There wasn't much that ultron could do, and that was why Pietro was the one who had two units trying to stop him.

That was also why he was the one that Skye was going to have to take down with the minimum amount of damage.

She had the serious advantage over Ultron that Pietro would always attack him over her, even if Pietro were willing to attack her at all, and that wasn't completely certain either. She also knew that he was fast enough to get away if he realised what she was up to, which meant that she needed to catch him by surprise. She watched, getting closer. She waited until...

Skye threw out her hand, a shockwave rippling out. It was strong but, even as it rolled away from her, it was clear that there were no more windows left to shatter. Good. Skye had thought that was the case. More importantly, Skye had waited until the exact moment that the blur that was Pietro had come between her and Wanda, timing like it was a videogame that she totally didn’t play and she dared anyone to prove otherwise.

Her timing was spot on. He hand had automatically come out while she had been watching carefully, something she hadn’t even been fully conscious of, but that meant that the effort that Skye needed to expend the instant her shot was lined up was as single thought. The energy pulses out of her as easy as breathing, and that would be something else to be concerned about but not then, not in the middle of a battle.

The shockwave caught Pietro completely by surprise. He was clearly not used to anything being able to touch him while he was moving at top speed and Skye could understand how that was the case when his opponents were only using projectiles but surely anyone with half a brain would have used a broad weapon, something that could attack a lot of space at once. A flamethrower, for example. But then maybe Skye just had a Stark brain, one that could both think and find the best weapons to do the deed.

There was a reason beyond inventiveness why Stark Industries had been the main name in weapons for the better part of a century. Starks were just that bloody minded.

Skye managed to force down her wince as she watched Pietro go flying into Wanda. She was close enough to the fight that she heard the undignified yelp that the telekinetic gave when she was unexpectedly knocked over by her brother right as she was about to shoot a blast of energy at an approaching Ultron unit.

Fortunately, Pietro's momentum was enough to knock the both of them well clear of the path of the advancing Ultron unit. That meant that the two squishier one of Ultron's opponents were thankfully out of the way as he went charging by. Lest fortunately, Captain America happened to be fighting a unit next to Wanda. As the Ultron charged by, unable to stop the momentum of the charge without a target to take the force, he continued on only to clip the Avenger.

Captain America, killer of nazis and hero of a thousand comics, let out an undignified yelp as he found himself spinning, pushed away slightly by the force of the charge. Skye watched it happen almost in slow motion, and it didn't once occur to her that the events were occurring too fast for a normal human to see, though she would think it later and wonder if it was yet another change caused by the Diviner. Captain America shook his head, as though trying to clear it after his brain had been scrambled. Skye saw an opportunity.

She was running for the truck before the idea had even coalesced in her mind, before it had even been put into words. There was an opportunity there, but a brief one. Every fraction of a second that she spent thinking about it, the small window in which it would work would slip further away. In fact, the window was so small that she didn't think that she would have been able to cover the distance necessary if she had been only human, if she hadn't been stronger and faster than she had ever been before.

Almost before she had realised it, Skye was at the truck. The doors of the container had been swung open and she dived in, dimly registering that the two of the four Ultron units were inside, so he must have had the same idea as her. For a second, she wondered what had become of the other two.

The container shuddered. Skye bit back a yelp, reaching blindly for anything that could provide support. Her fingers closer around clod metal, even as she felt something in the shape of an arm wrap itself around her waist, steadying her that way too. She looked up at Ultron with a small smile of gratitude on her face.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Two of the units are lifting us off the truck,” Ultron replied, but it was sort of distant. “I do not think that we will be able to retrieve the plane at the airp-”

Bam!

The entire contained shook again, but it wasn’t the shuttering of metal being ripped off metal. Skye had no doubt that they had just been hit by something, though she couldn’t for the life of her say what. Then she looked over to the still open container doors and let out a small growl of disbelief. Even though all she could see was a glove as they began to climb, it was clear who has made a last ditch attempt to stop them from getting away.

Captain America. Skye could understand why Coulson had such a man-crush on him. The guy just didn’t give up.

Ultron - one of them - was moving towards him, probably to stamp on his fingers and get him to let go - but he was too slow. Before he got there, Captain America had hauled himself up into the container, ducking straight into a roll to avoid Ultron’s fist. In a flash, Skye could immediately see that Captain America had something going for him: there was only one of him and there were three of them on Ultron’s side. With the cradle in there too, there wasn’t a whole lot of space.

For a moment, Skye considered using her powers then realised that they were in far too confined a space. Besides, she was acutely aware of the thrumming in her mind, originating from behind her. The stone was practically clamoring for her attention and Skye really, really didn’t want to know what would happen if the stone was in close proximity to her powers. Given the ping she had been able to do earlier, feeling out the others, she suspected that the same thing would happen and she would be assaulted by the knowledge of which directions to follow to find the others.

Her dithering was a mistake. In a matter of seconds, Captain America had rolled under the reach of the Ultron units and pushed past Skye, tossing his shield at the straps that were holding down the cradle, severing them. For a moment, the container froze. The the slight angle of the incline began to work with gravity, the cradle beginning to slip towards the still open doors, gathering momentum as it went. Skye dived out of the way, but the shifting of the weight of cradle made the whole container wobble, throwing her off and sending her crashing into Captain America.

Skye’s weight alone probably wasn’t what sent the Avenger tumbling out of the path of the cradle. She probably had a lot of help from the shifting floor, probably destabilized him too, but she knocked him out of the way, the both of them sprawling onto the floor of the container. At that same moment, one of the Ultron units moved from its position of being ready to stop the cradle to move towards her, probably to check that she was alright.

One Ultron unit wasn’t enough to stop several tonnes of metal when it had momentum behind it. The cradle completely wiped it out, crushing it easily and continuing on its merry way out of the container. Skye tried to untangle herself from Captain America, but panicked as she felt one very large hand close over her arm. The tension that had been simmering away began boiling again and she felt a small surge of vibrations roll out of her where the Avenger had a grip on her.

Skye had heard the expression ‘eyes rolling up into the head’ a thousand times before but she had never seen such a good example. It was almost as though his eyeballs weren’t attached at all, the way they flipped up at once incredibly gross and incredibly scary as he passed out.

“No!” Ultron said and Skye turned just in time to see him punch the side of the container. Skye scrambled out of the tangle of limbs that was the unconscious Captain America and moved over to the still open doors to see what had angered Ultron.

The container was fine, completely uncrushed from falling onto the pavement. unfortunately, that was because it hadn’t fallen but had been caught by Wanda, the red energy glowing eerily as she slowly lowered the container to the ground. For a second, Skye thought that Ultron was going to jump out and go after it again. Skye was mostly relieved that she could no longer feel the hum of the Infinity Stone.

“We don’t have enough reinforcements,” she said, grabbing his arm. “I don’t think they will destroy it. We can always capture it later, when we have the numbers.”

Ultron growled, a strangely animalistic sound considering that there was no animal in him. “We lost.”

“We’re alive,” Skye said. “Sometimes that’s all the victory that’s needed, little brother.”

Ultron suddenly turned his head to look back into the container. Or, more accurately, he turned to look back at the unconscious form of Captain AMerica. When he spoke, there was still some anger there but there was also an undercurrent of dark satisfaction. “Maybe not all it lost. After all… we have a very nice piece of bait.”

Skye suppressed a shiver. That sounded worryingly ominous. She really, really hoped that she figured out what his plan was soon.

She didn’t think she could take much more of it all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, I guess I forgot the schedule last week. Ah well, here is is. Also, don't forget that there will be a bonus mid-week chapter when the fic reaches 100 bookmarks, so you might want to think about doing that if you haven't yet :)
> 
> Edit: apparently there's a [TvTropes page](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/SometimesIHateTheLifeIMade) for this fic. I've made it to the big leagues :)


	11. Pushing On (I Can't Escape)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve realises he probably should have learned something from Natasha other than Cold War jokes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys... its on time! My internet seems to be fixed so we should be getting back on track. As promised, the next chapter will come out mid-week, either Wednesday or Thursday, since the fic has passed 100 bookmarks (there will also be another chapter on Sunday, don't worry).  
> 

Steve slowly clawed his way out of the unconsciousness, the sound of bickering serving as his guide as to which way was out.

Then the pain hit and he couldn’t help the groan that pushed its way out of his mouth. The sounds stop and he felt a firm, if small, hand on his shoulder to roll him onto his back. There was no increase in the light filtering through his eyelids, which meant that he wasn’t outside. He tentatively opened his eyes, keeping them in a squint to minimise the impact of the light. It didn’t help much.

He groaned again. He couldn’t help but think he was in the middle of the worst headache he had suffered from since the serum. He tried to remember what had happened and the closest he could get was a vague impression of having tussled with someone. A few seconds later, his mind threw up the image of a young woman, dark hair and well-tanned skin, eyes wide with something… fear, maybe. Quake. He had been fighting with Quake.

His eyes having adjusted some, he cracked them open a little further, then a little further again, only to find Quake herself leaning over him. Her face was mostly relaxed, if a little irritated. Remembering the voices that he had heard arguing, Steve figured that it might not necessarily be directed at him. At any rate, she didn’t seem scared, which was always a good thing. Scared people were a lot harder to reason with and more prone to making unreasonable choices. Neither were attractive propositions while Steve was her prisoner.

“How’s your head?” she asked, her tone more curious than worried.

“Sore. Sorer than it's been for a long time.” Steve let his voice trail off, inviting her to explain how she had managed that. She didn’t take the bait.

“Just in case you’re getting any ideas, you might not be tied up but either Ultron or I can take you down in a matter of seconds. Even Ward could slow you down some, and you’re seriously outnumbered.”

“You’d probably thrown me around like cannon fodder,” a voice grumbled from outside Steve’s field of vision. After a few seconds, he recognised it as the other voice that had brought him out of unconsciousness. He guessed that Ward and Quake had been arguing.

“Seriously? I shot you, several times, and you’re surprised that I don’t care about your presence enough to check if you had turned up,” Quake snapped, rounding on someone to Steve’s left. The look on her face reminded him a little of Peggy, and he felt a pang of longing before squashing it. Peggy hadn’t been a supervillain.

“I’m here to help you out, I’m putting my life on the line, Skye. The least you could do is not leave me unconscious in the middle of a battlefield!”

Quake glared. “Then next time you should keep an eye on the speedster who can knock you unconscious. How does it go? ‘Never turn your back on an enemy’.”

“He was a decent way away!”

“Its not my fault you’re not adapting to a changing reality. People might have superpowers. Get over it. You knew what Pietro could do, its not my fault you were paying attention.” To Steve’s eye, Quake looked more than a little smug. The expression gave Steve a strange sense of deja vu, but the pounding in his head chased away all hope of figuring out what it reminded him of. If it still felt as though it mattered when his head was clear again, he would follow it up.

Steve pushed himself up off of his side, into a sitting position. It wasn’t an easy manoeuvre, thanks to both his exhaustion and the fact that his arms were restrained behind his back with what felt like a piece of metal twisted around them. Someone clearly wasn’t going to take any chances, and they probably would have done as much even if they had proper restraints or handcuffs. One of the leaked SHIELD files had a video where Steve demonstrated just how much pressure he could bring to bear on metal. Ultron, at least, would have seen it.

"It won't work," Steve said, quietly and firmly. Tony mocked him for his inability to not lecture the bad guys and try to convince them to take a different tack, but Steve didn't consider it to be a fault. He felt that everyone should have a second chance to do the right thing. Everyone except Nazis, that is. And, by extension HYDRA.

Urgh. HYDRA.

Quake turned back to look at him. "You're going to have to be more specific."

"Your-" Steve caught himself, a moment too slow. That was exactly the kind of gaff that kept giving Tony ammunition to mock him with.

Quake's face lit up, and Steve was struck by how sweet she looked when she was smiling. "Oh my god, you were about to say 'your evil plan', weren't you?"

Steve hesitated, but Quake wasn’t acting like someone who would take exception. She actually looked as though she thought it was funny. “...Yes.”

Quake began shaking. For a moment, Steve thought that it was laughter. And it was, at least at first. Once second the supervillain was sobbing with laughter and then she was just plain sobbing. Steve’s mother was more powerful than being seventy years in the future or self-preservation, because Steve’s first instinct on seeing a woman cry was to comfort her. Since she was a supervillain, he froze instead, panicking and unsure what he should be doing.

“Skye?” came Ultron’s slightly distorted and mechanical voice. For a moment, he was thrown by the strange inflection, before Steve realised that it was being gentle. Steve couldn't help the rush of anger at the robot’s attempt to manipulate the poor girl. Then he kicked himself again.

‘She’s a supervillain, Stevie,’ he could practically hear Bucky say, his voice dry and exasperated. God, he hoped that Bucky was okay, wherever he was.

“I’m fine,” she said but the effect was slightly ruined by the fact that it was clearly watery. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw an aborted movement and he turned his head to see Ward looking extremely awkward. Steve would have felt a little bit of satisfaction if it were for that fact that he suspected that he looked just as uncomfortable. Yes, Quake had found their weakness: a crying woman.

If Nat found out, she was never going to let him live it down.

“Skye,” Ultron said again, the only one of him in the space taking the few steps necessary to stand next to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Coming down off an adrenalin high,” she said. Steve didn’t believe her for a second.

“You did well,” Ultron said. Both the supervillains ignored Steve’s noise of protest.

“I lost my temper with Hawkeye,” Quake grimaced, voice still watery. Steve sat up straight, panic rushing over him. Clint- “I lost control of my powers and did a lot of damage I didn’t intend.”

“Is he alive?” Steve asked, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. It was obvious that he would be worried about his teammates but that didn’t mean that he needed to make it obvious that he really did care about them.

Quake put his fears to rest. “Yes. Unconscious, but I doubt that there will be any long term effects.” Steve felt some of the tension drain out of him and nodded at her in thanks. She could have dragged it out to hurt him, but she hadn’t. There might still be hope for her yet.

“You knocked a lot of people out today,” Ward said. His voice was clearly intentionally calm, even to Steve.

Quake bristled. “Something you want to say?” she asked. There was anger in her voice and Steve recalled the way that the two of them had been arguing before. There might be something there that he could exploit to try and escape but he had trouble reconciling their arguing with what Coulson had said about Ward trying to help her. From what Steve was seeing, he didn’t seem to be that devoted to her at all.

“Yeah. You shouldn’t have left them alive. They might come back someday and-”

“Kill me?” Quake sneered. Again, Steve couldn’t help the feeling of deja vu. “Maybe. But I’d much rather bet of their mercy, and on the fact that they will hesitate because I didn’t kill them.”

Steve couldn’t help but think that she was protesting too much, but then Tony was always quick to point out that he could be optimistic. Steve thought that the world his teammate lived in must be a sad one indeed, if there were no second chances, and that it would explain rather a lot about why Tony never seemed to be able to forgive himself for all that others did with his technology.

“Skye-” Ward began, frustration clear in his tone.

“Ward,” Quake responded firmly. “Let’s be clear. The only thing I want less than to have you here is to become someone like you.” Steve winced. Harsh. Justified, from what little Coulson would say, but harsh.

Ward stiffened but he didn’t get angry. “You won’t become ‘someone like me’, as you put it, but that doesn’t mean that it's not smart to be more ruthless when dealing with enemies.”

A muscle ticked slightly in Quake’s jaw. “I don’t think that’s smart but, even if it is, that does make it right.”

Ward’s expression began to darken. “Is being right more important than being alive?” he asked angrily.

Quake’s expression was beginning to mimic his. “Sometimes it is,” she said, causing Ward to scoff. “Yeah, yeah; apparently that makes me naive. But my friends will miss me long after I’m gone. How many friends do you have, Ward?”

Steve couldn’t help but feel a little bit uncomfortable. He was a prisoner and couldn’t help but overhear the conversation but he still had the nagging feeling that he was witnessing a lover’s quarrel and that made him feel rude. As much as he couldn’t believe it, he was starting to miss HYDRA. They at least have never made him feel like a heel for listening to a conversation that would have been better to have had in private.

“One. Kara. But at least she and I are on the same side,” Ward said, voice finally edging into the venomous territory that it had been skirting for so long.

Ultron snapped.

In a matter of seconds, Ward was pinned to the wall of the… actually, now that Steve was looking around he couldn’t help but think that it looked suspiciously like the interior of a quinjet. That was something to think about another time, however, since Steve was more concerned about the show of force from Ultron. On behalf of Quake, who looked shaken but not surprised, Steve noted.

“In the future, you would do well to keep your tone civil with Skye,” Ultron said, and Steve noticed that it used her real name rather than her codename. Steve thought back to the confrontation on the deserted ship. Back then, Ultron had introduced her to him and the rest of the Avengers by her codename. Interesting.

“I’m trying to give her the truth, since you’re clearly too invested in keeping her on your side,” Ward his out around the hand at his throat. Steve was surprised he had enough air. He was beginning to turn blue.

“Then perhaps I should make myself clearer: any ‘truth’ that you wish to present to Skye will be done in a civil tone, or not at all.” Ultron pressed harder on Ward’s throat, causing the former HYDRA agent to struggle, trying to get enough air. Steve winced in sympathy, even if the man was disliked by pretty much everyone in the whole world.

“Ultron,” Quake said, voice steady. “I think he gets the message.”

As soon as Quake spoke, Ultron withdrew his arm, allowing Ward to fall to the ground, gasping desperately for air. Steve knew the sensation of desperately needing air but not being able to get it and was more than a little aware of how, even afterwards, it could still feel like not enough. He wondered if Tony had those kinds of nightmares too.

“Let this be your only lesson,” Ultron said, faceplate angled as though he was looking down at ward. Quake, however, was looking at Ultron, eyes dark. Steve wasn’t sure he could interpret the look on her face correctly, but it seemed to him to be a mix of a few different emotions. Fear, and guilt, chief among them. Then she must have remembered that there was an audience to the drama, because her gaze snapped to his and her face shuttered.

“How far out are we?” she asked, clearly wanting to change the subject. She looked as though she would rather be anywhere than stuck in the same plane as Ultron and Ward. Still, her question seemed to do its job and jolted Ultron out of the glaring at the still-recovering Ward.

“No more than ten minutes,” Ultron replied, turning to look at her. “We are nearly out of Russian airspace.”

Both Quake and Ward froze. Quake closed her eyes for a moment before reopening them. “Please tell me we are not baiting the Russians. They would shoot us down in a second.”

Ward was clearly just as impressed as Quake was. “In this case, not violating Russian airspace while in a jet with Captain America is both smart and right.”

“As much as I hate to agree with Ward,” Quake said, looking pained, “I agree with Ward.”

Ultron’s features rearranged themselves into something that approximated a human smile. “Oh, we have permission to be here. Yes, they were very keen to help when I informed them that the good Captain was not here willingly and that they have plausible deniability for annoying the Avengers. They jumped at the opportunity.”

“At least they’re still doing their bit to prevent global warming,” Steve said without thinking.

There was a beat of silence while all three stared at him. Then Quake burst into laughter, real that time. She, at least, got the joke, even if Steve hadn’t intended to tell it. “Please, please, tell me you just told a Cold War joke.”

“It wasn’t intentional!” Steve said plaintively, causing Quake to throw back her head with laughter.

“Too bad,” Quake said, taking a few steps closer and sitting down next to Steve. “Know any others?”

Steve briefly considered protesting but then thought better of it. There were far worse things captors could do than force him to tell Cold War jokes. “What takes ten years and never quite works right?”

Quake began laughing before she even heard the punch line. It took her a few seconds to get herself together, before grinning right at Steve and giving the punchline herself. “A Soviet Five Year Plan!”

The supervillain - supervillainess? - seemed almost giddy with relief over the conversation being steered away from her. Steve wondered just how much it bothered her to be in the middle of Ultron and Ward, given that it must be a lot more than the decent amount she had let show. Steve felt a pang of sympathy for the woman, who looked so much younger when she was laughing as opposed to trying to look intimidating.

“So how does Captain America know Cold War jokes?” she asked. “Weren’t you asleep then?”

“I work with the one person who knows more Cold War jokes than Hawkeye,” Steve replied

“Tony Stark?” Ward asked from his position leaning up against the side of the jet.

“Natasha Romanoff.”

Quake laughed again. “Bet she has some good ones.”

Steve went out on a limb. “Join the Avengers and find out.”

Quake’s smile disappeared. “Oh, I don’t think she likes me at all now. I doubt she’ll tell me any jokes.”

Steve decided not to go down that path. His best chance at getting free was to make an opportunity, and Quake wouldn’t keep her guard up as much if she was laughing as opposed to serious. “I didn’t take you for a Cold War joke enthusiast,” he said instead.

Quake shrugged. “I was born in China before it started opening up,” she said, and Steve had no idea what she was talking about but figured it must have been something he had missed out on. It occurred to him that he might have spent less time checking into pop culture and a little more into world history.

“Okay…” he said trailing off. Quake grinned a little.

“My dad considered it his patriotic duty to ensure that I knew every possible communist joke in existence. Since even he wouldn’t go for the borderline racist Chinese ones, that pretty much only left the Soviet ones.”

Steve briefly wondered where Quake had come from. Coulson - Director Coulson - had mentioned that she didn’t have any real past. In fact, as they had been flying to South Korea, the former agent had specifically mentioned that it had been Quake’s lack of past which had made him consider recruiting her. Apparently it had been the right call, since Quake had erased the identities of loyal SHIELD agents to protect them from prosecution as terrorists.

Apparently her father was the kind of man that Quake didn’t mind not contacting, so as not to let SHIELD know. Not completely awful, if he wouldn’t tell any racist joke, which was apparently still not always the case even in the twenty-first century, but not great enough that Quake couldn’t leave him behind. Despite the fact that he was, technically, a prisoner, Steve couldn’t help but be curious about Quake. She clearly wasn’t very evil at all, and he wondered what made her help Ultron, and how Steve might be about to get her to chose the right path.

“Can I ask how a Chinese citizen came to America?”

Quake laughed again. “Oh, I’m not a Chinese citizen, at least not anymore. There’s no dual citizenship so the fact that I’ve been American for most of my life means that I basically have no rights in China.”

Steve blinked. “Oh. Okay. How about-”

He cut himself off, feeling the familiar change in the rhythm of the quinjet engines. Now that he had a reason to look around, he could see that it was one of the older models of quinjets, from before SHIELD fell. It must have been stashed away somewhere that either Quake or Ultron or even Ward had known about it. It was a little bit less quiet than the knew ones, and Steve knew that sound from the engines meant that they were coming in to land.

“We’re here,” Ultron said, unnecessarily. Quake was already standing and looking out the front windshield with interest. Ward was watching Quake with an indecipherable look on his face, and Steve couldn’t help the shiver that went down his spine. It was the look of a man who knew something terrible was going to happen, but hadn’t yet decided if he was going to stop it.

It hadn’t occurred to Steve that there might be a way to persuade Ward over to the right side but he filed the look away in case he got an opportunity.

The quinjet touched down lightly despite the fact that there was no pilot. Steve guessed that Ultron was doing what JARVIS used to and piloting it remotely, without requiring a physical presence. At any rate, they had arrived safely at their destination and Steve couldn’t help the dread that was beginning to creep into him. While they were in the plan, he had managed to put out of his mind the fact that he didn’t know where they were going or what they were up to. He no longer had that luxury.

Steve was jerked out of his thoughts by the hand that came curling up under his right arm, still twisted behind his back. The grip was strong, and his eyes had drifted towards the front to see if he could get any clues as to where they were. He could see both Quake and Ultron, leaving only one person who could be dragging him to his feet, Ward. Steve let his body relax slightly, forcing Ward to take the bulk of the weight of serum-enhanced muscles, expecting a grunt. None came, and Steve glanced to the side, finding that Ward seemed to be having very little trouble at all.

Once he had been manhandled out of the jet, Steve stopped in shock. He knew the courtyard he was standing in, the castle. hey had searched it top to bottom to make sure that they had gotten everything that HYDRA had stashed there of value, though Tony had been planning to have people come and get the rest of the machinery before the whole Ultron debacle. Sokovia, the castle in Sokovia. That was where Ultron was based.

Steve really, really hoped that the Maximoff twins had joined up with the rest of the Avengers easily enough. There was no doubt that they had to know about the castle, might even have been the reason why Ultron had settled there. If they had joined up with the other Avengers, they would be able to point the Avengers in the right direction, help them come find Steve. In other words, there may be a rescue on the way.

Unfortunately, it would involve Nat, which meant that not only would Steve never hear the end of it from her, it would get back to Sam and Steve would hear it from him too. Some days, Steve couldn’t remember why he considered them friends. Actually, it was probably because they would absolutely pay him out for getting caught by Ultron. Which only meant that Steve needed to pull off something that made it look as though it was his plan all along, even if Nat would see right through it.

Steve didn’t resist as Ward marched him down to the dungeons, following Ultron and Quake. Steve was too busy trying to take everything in, see if there was anything that could be useful to him or the Avengers. It wasn’t the easiest thing Steve had ever done, having never been trained for anything like it. He was a soldier, not a spy. It just wasn’t anything that he had ever been prepared for.

Steve stumbled slightly, a trick that he had seen Nat use a few times to get a better view of something. Perhaps it was the fact that he didn’t have the training, or that the majority of the audience were former SHIELD agents or maybe he just didn’t have Nat’s skill, but STeve immediately found himself being grabbed and hauled to his feet.

“Don’t even think about,” Ward said calmly but his eyes were venomous. STeve didn’t get it; at best, he would have simply gotten a cleared look through a door. It was clearly an overreaction. So Steve kept his cool.

“Just wanted a clearer look,” he said calmly. Ward was already opening his mouth to reply when Quake’s voice cut across him.

“Put him in the storeroom, Ward,” she said, voice sharp and full of warning. For a moment, Steve thought that Ward was going to ignore her but instead the tension slowly dripped out of his body and he gave Steve a firm shove backwards. Steve tripped over his own feet, falling ungracefully backward.

Looking up at Ward, Steve felt his jaw lock slightly as he felt a rush of dislike. Whether the other man had decided to back out or not, Ward was the kind of person that Steve very much didn’t like. Not a bully, not precisely, but someone who used his strength and other people’s weaknesses. Even if there was a chance that they might end up allies, Steve very much hoped that he got what he deserved in the end.

“Captain,” Quake said and Steve turned his attention to her. The supervillainess slid down so that she was sitting on the floor, right by the bars of Steve’s cell.

“Quake,” he said, acknowledging that she had his attention again. “Hope you’re not prone to pneumonia,” he said with a slightly strained smile. The dungeons of the castle were exactly the kind of place that his pre-serum instincts were screaming at him to get out of, lest he catch his death of cold.

“I don’t really get sick,” she replied, squirming around until she was more comfortable.

“So what’s the plan?” he asked. “You going to interrogate me?”

Quake made a face. “I’m pretty bad at interrogation,” she said, shooting a glare at Ward, who smirked. Steve decided that he didn’t want to know. “Then what-”

A phone rang.

Everyone froze. Everyone. Steve, Quake, Ward, Ultron and… more Ultrons, wherever they had come from. Everyone turned to the source of the noise, tensing up as though they were ready for a fight.Steve supposed that they were, given whatever they were planning would no doubt have a lot of people wanting to stop them. Except Steve had been close enough to hear exactly where it had come from, and it wasn’t any intruder.

Blushing, Quake fumbled with her jacket, unzipping it and then unzipping a pocket inside to slip out the rigging phone. It took Steve a few seconds to realise why the phone seemed so familiar: it was one of the Starkphones that Tony was so proud of and insisted on foisting on everyone and anyone he even remotely liked. Steve noticed it because it was so very odd. The phones were not publically available and the whole attitude between Tony and Quake suggested that they didn’t like each other.

So why did Quake have it?

The supervillainess in question looked over at one of the Ultrons, one that was bigger and more humanoid than the others. She seemed to have no trouble isolating the main AI. The unit responded to her unasked question. “Put it on speaker.”

Quake hesitated, but only for a second. Then she made a few swipes, a few taps on the screen and answered. “This is Skye.”

“Skye, what’s going on?” came the unmistakable voice of Pepper Potts. Steve started. He supposed that it was conceivable that Quake, who clearly knew Tony, also knew Pepper but the supervillainess sounded very familiar with the CEO of Stark Industries.

“What do you mean?” Quake’s voice was calm, polite but the look on her face was one of pain. Steve knew right then that she was aware that she would have to tell Pepper something that Quake didn’t want to. He felt a pang of sympathy.

“I mean the fight in Johannesburg. You haven’t called, not even to mock, which means something’s wrong.” Pepper’s voice betrayed her concern. Steve considered speaking up, letting her know where he was, but a quick glance over at Ultron and Ward stopped him. Ward looked confused as to why Pepper was calling Quake.

Ultron did not. Steve really, really wanted to know what was going on.

Quake herself looked torn, nibbling on her lower lip. She glanced over at Ultron, and sucked in a breath. For a moment, Steve thought it was fear, but then Quake’s eyes hardened and she stood straightening her spine. “Hey, Pep? Did you know that he made a sentient AI?”

It was obvious from the context who ‘he’ was. But was less clear was why Quake felt the need to bring it up. She clearly didn’t think it was a problem, since she had sided with Ultron, and her enmity with Tony seemed to run much deeper and longer than that. So why was she bringing it up with Pepper, the only one who had even the slightest ability to guide Tony.

There was a pause before Pepper spoke, voice even but cautious. “I didn’t.”

“Well, he did. And I-” She cut herself off, clearly trying to find the best way to explain it. She took a deep breath and tried again. “I decided I would very much like to get to know my brother.”

Wait, what? Her brother? What did her brother have to do with anything? She was siding with Ultron, who was on a mission for complete annihilation. How could she possibly justify that as ‘getting to know her brother’? Unless… Unless her brother was there, with them. Unless her brother was on Ultron’s side. Unless her brother was… Ward.

Steve turned to look at Ward, only to find that the man had the most confused expression Steve had ever seen on his face. Okay, maybe the man wasn’t Quake’s brother. He certainly didn’t seem to have a better idea what was going on than Steve did. He glanced over at Steve, a frown on his face. It took Steve a few seconds to realise that he was thinking the same thing about Steve as he had about Ward. Steve shook his head, causing Ward’s frown to deepen.

“Oh, Skye.” Pepper said after a few second and she sounded… Sad wasn’t strong enough. Heartbroken, maybe. “You know that you have family, don’t you?”

“I know,” Quake said, voice slightly lower, as though she didn’t want the other three of them to hear what she thought should be a private moment. “Hey, Pep, can you tell Uncle Rhodey something from me?”

Steve have met Rhodey a few times, had liked him. He had a lot of fun introducing the Colonel to Sam, then sitting back and watching the two of them try to out-posture each other, all in good fun. It was a nice break from all the Army and jarhead jokes they both thought were hilarious. As far as he knew, Rhodey didn’t have any significant others, no one not related to him who would call him ‘uncle’. Just who, exactly, was Quake?

“Of course,” Pepper replied immediately, voice slightly watery. Steve wanted very much to say something, but he suspected that knowing there was an audience would make it all the worse for Pepper.

“Tell him…” Quake took a deep breath, clearly determined to keep her voice steady and her face serene. “Tell him that the tank story is awesome.”

Quake hung up the phone immediately, not giving Pepper a chance to answer. Then she turned to look at Ward and Steve, then she explained the connection that was so obvious that Steve couldn’t help but feel like an idiot for not getting earlier. “Yes, Tony Stark is my Dad. Get over it.”

Well, he’d be darned.


	12. Nothing Ever Lasts Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Skye runs rather than dealing and the supervillain group get an unexpected guest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really, really sorry to everyone. Real life kicked me in the teeth this week and I just couldn't get a bonus chapter in time. So you're getting this today (a day late or two days early, depending on how you look at it). The next chapter won't be on Sunday but rather on Tuesday, at the latest. Then its back to our easy to remember Sunday schedule.  
> In other news, there's a [TvTropes page](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/SometimesIHateTheLifeIMade) for this fic. If you haven't encountered TvTropes before, its a site that catalogues come elements in various stories. Trust me, its much more addictive than it sounds so give it a try.

If Skye had hit either Ward or Captain America over the head with something hard and heavy, like a pipe, she still didn’t think that she would have been able to make them look as stunned as they did then.

Captain America stared at her, jaw slack. He blinked a few times, as though that was going to help him unhear what she had just said. Skye managed to stop from rolling her eyes, but only just. It was something that she had struggled with her whole life but it was new to the other two, so she supposed that they should be allowed some slack.

Ward’s reaction was very different.

He stood stunned for a few seconds before her words had fully processed. Then he reared back, face still displaying his shock, as though the mere fact of her parentage made him want to be further away from her. His mouth still hung open and Skye felt a small wave of triumph at finally forcing him into an expression which made that absurd jawline look bad. She decided to savor the small victory, figuring that she might not have a big one for awhile.

“Tony?” Captain America finally said incredulously. “Really?”

“You’re kidding,” Ward said flatly. “You must be.”

Skye tried to keep her face blank. “Trust me, there’s nothing funny about it.”

“Still, there’s no way that you’re Tony Stark’s daughter. I would have known,” Ward said, immovable.

“Just like I knew that you were HYDRA?” Skye asked pointedly, even though it wasn’t a fair comparison for her. Sure, it wasn’t something that she wanted generally known but it also wasn’t something that was her fault, something that she would be blamed for if it came out.

“That’s not the same, and you know it,” Ward said, and there was a tightness in his voice as the surprise slowly began to slip off his face. It took Skye a second to realise: he was angry with her. He was angry, and he was angry with her. Him.

Skye’s temper exploded.

The entire castle began shaking. It wasn’t the slow build, the low rumble that would cause water to ripple. Just as the tension in her caused her temper to go from zero to a hundred in a fraction of an instant, so too did her powers take off from a standing start. The entire basement, from the assembly line working hard behind her to the people inside it, began shaking uncontrollably.

“How dare you?” she hissed, feeling Ultron move in close behind her. “You’re angry with me. You are angry with me. I haven’t killed anyone Ward, I haven’t betrayed anyone. I simply left out a fact about my parentage. Something which, by the way, doesn’t change anything about me and so shouldn’t be changing anything about the way you see me. You are the last person who has the faintest trace of a right to be angry.”

The cavern was really shaking by that point but Skye only knew that in the most distant, vaguest of ways. All her attention was on Ward rather than the effects her fury was having on the cavern. She almost didn’t notice when a cool metal hand lay itself on her shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. A small portion of her anger drained away at that, but only the smallest of portions. If asked, she wouldn’t have even been able to name the cause.

“The fact that you’re Iron Man’s daughter isn’t relevant when we might be fighting the Avengers?” Ward demanded.

“No!” Skye practically screamed. “I wouldn’t pull any punches and nor would he so its not relevant in the slightest!”

Everything went quiet as the two men she could see looked at her with wide eyes. Without Ward’s annoying and infuriating commentary to answer, Skye finally realised properly that the whole place was shaking. A piece of the roof hit the ground a few metres from her. A small piece, but still.

Skye took a deep breath, trying to focus herself. It wasn’t fair. She had never asked to be Tony Stark’s daughter, had never asked for powers that she couldn’t quite control either. Worse, her anger was what was setting them off and each time she realised that she had lost control, she just got angier both with the person who had caused her temper to flare up and with herself. It was a terrible feedback loop.

She needed to not think about that, about anything really. She was starting to really wish that she had paid more attention when May had tried to teach her various forms of meditation, beyond simply trying to keep her pulse slow. That was the kind of thing that she could have used right then. That or the two polar opposites men, dark ward and blonde Captain America, could stop staring at her, damnit.

“Skye,” Ultron said quietly, and the arm that Skye realised was on her shoulder shifted so that it could pull her in close for what she realised was a hug. Unfortunately, the sharp angles and hard planes of the AI’s frame made it impossible for it to provide the comfort that a human hug was designed for. The thought helped a little, but only so much.

“I hate this,” she mumbled so that the only person who would hear was the one who understood it in a way no one else ever would. “I hate that anyone who knows will always think that the most important part of me is him.”

Ultron’s hand squeezed her shoulder slightly. “It won’t matter once he’s dead.”

That jolted Skye out of her self pity. She had nearly forgotten that the person who had been comforting her was also the one who wanted to hurt so very many people. She was there to stop her brother, not to pour her heart out to him. So she laughed it off instead. A bitter laugh, but a laugh still.

“And yet Grandpa will always be the most important part of Dad, so history says otherwise.”

Ultron whirred quietly, seeming to consider that. “But by assuming that what will occur to you will be the same as occurred to Tony Stark, are you not making the same assumption that you dislike others making, that you are like him?”

Skye felt a muscle jump in her jaw, not through any choice of her own but from the sheer level of anger  Ultron’s words caused her. It was infuriating, all the more so because it was true. But she was thinking about it all the wrong way. Rather than poking holes in what was said and refusing to be reassured, Skye needed to be thinking about how sweet it was, even if it was misguided. In short, she had to make like a self-help book and think positively.

Easier said than done.

“Hey Quake,” Captain America said suddenly. “Why does the KGB always patrol in threes?”

Skye felt her body relax slightly. “One to read, one to write and one to keep an eye on the two dangerous intellectuals in front of him,” she replied, feeling a ghost of a smile brushing across her lips.

“How about this one? An American, a Russian and an East German return from a moon expedition. The American was told he was a national hero and could chose between a million dollars and a medal of honor. He chose the million dollars, so he could start a business. The Russian was told that he was a national hero could chose between a million rubles and a medal of honor. He chose the medal of honor, because there was no business for him to start. The East German was also told he was a national hero. But he had missed a week’s work, so he could chose between a salary cut and over time.”

Skye looked at him non-plused. “That’s not funny.”

Captain America pasted a clearly fake lofty look onto his face. “The Black Widow begs to disagree.”

Skye considered that. “I’m worried by her sense of humour.”

Captain America looked slightly embarrassed. “Frankly, so am I. Okay, how about this one: the American relay team faces off against the Soviet team and the Americans win. The next day, headlines in Moscow read ‘Soviets take honourable second place’. The Americans get the subtitle: “Americans come next to last.’”

Ward’s eyes went heavenwards. Well, to the cavern ceiling anyway. “Please, god, make them stop,” he said with feeling.

Feeling a little better, Skye couldn't help but taunt him. “What’s the matter, Ward? Did the operation where they removed your sense of humour also make you allergic to it?” It was hardly her most brilliant comeback ever, but she felt even better for having said it.

The fact of the matter was that she hadn’t forgiven Ward for his betrayal and probably never would. That was a problem, because she was doing pretty much the exact same thing to Ultron, with the added insult of the fact that the two of them were siblings. Skye would say that he would never forgive her, except that she knew that victory would only be achieved when her brother was dead.

Sometimes, Skye really didn’t like her life, even though a lot of the things that gave her grief were the products of her own choices.

“I’m not allergic to humour,” he said stuffily. “Its just that neither of you are at all funny.”

“I’m hurt,” Captain America deadpanned. It was the final straw for Skye. She cracked up.

Even though she couldn’t see their faces, she was pretty sure that the two men were give her the same looks they had earlier when she had laughed so as not to cry. It didn’t matter, not that time. She was genuinely laughing, laughing at the sheer absurdity of the situations. She was cracking Cold War jokes with Captain America, and Mr HYDRA was judging her for not telling him that Tony Stark was her Dad.

Come on, that was pretty hilarious, right?

Skye had decided that it was, and the humour was helping. She could feel the vibrations that had been shaking the cavern beginning to die down, even as ultron continued to gently squeeze her shoulder. She wondered if that had been Captain America’s plan, then resisted the urge to hum ‘ The Star-Spangled Man With A Plan’. She was trying to prove that she wasn’t her Dad, and he was that kind of a dick.

She was glad that she was on a different continent to Pepper. Even though that last thought had been in Skye’s head, Pepper would have known anyway. There were very few people that continued to awe Skye after so much as a short acquaintance, but Virginia Potts was one of them. Skye loved her to bits, and was a little bit terrified of her at the same time.

“Oh god, I need some air,” she said once she had managed to get her composure back.

“Try not to arouse suspicion if you go into the city,” Ultron said after a brief hesitation. For a moment there, Skye had thought that he was going to protest but apparently she was wrong. She did have a sneaking suspicion that he wanted to stay and gloat at Captain America.

“I’ll go with you,” Ward said, shifting as though he was about to come over to where she was standing.

“No,” Ultron said.

“Hell, no,” Skye said at the exact same time. Probably for different reasons, but then that didn’t matter all that much. “I’m just going to go,” she said and fled.

When they had arrived at the castle, they had entered the cavern by way of an opening in the base of the hill the structure was built on. But Skye had figured that there had to be a way to get up into the castle itself from down there, so she started heading up rather than down, as she would have if she had been going down into the city.

The further up she went, the more benches and work areas and general HYDRA paraphernalia was lying around. She was kind of a little surprised that the Avengers had just left it all there, but then they had probably figured that it would all be fine until they found the time to send someone to clean it up. She really, really hoped that there was nothing too dangerous still lying around, all there more because the whole place could once again be called an evil lair.

Skye did not grin a little at having a share of an evil lair. Really.

She yelped as a hand gripped her arm. She looked away from the tables she had been contemplating curiously, head whipping around because she knew that none of the people supposedly on her side were out in that direction, which meant that whoever she had very nearly just walked into, they were probably not hostile. She looked at the face. It looked familiar. Her eyes travelled down the arm that was holding her, slowly, because she felt as though she already knew what she would see there. Metal.

The Winter Soldier.

Skye reacted fast, hand going for the gun she had taken from the Black Widow because she wasn’t sure that she could trust her powers. Skye was fast, very  fast, but she wasn’t fast enough. That cold metal arm that was holding her let go only to grab her right arm, stopping her from getting at her weapon. Skye kicked out automatically, catching the Winter Soldier in the side and earning a grunt.

He didn’t let up.

Skye opened her mouth to scream for help, since there was no bonus points for losing honourably against someone considerably more skilled than her, but his other hand clamped over her mouth. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he hissed.

Skye eyed him skeptically, trying to convey all her disbelief without words.

“Stop eyeballing me,” he ordered which had the exact opposite effect. He looked annoyed. “You remind me of someone,” he said, letting the hand covering her mouth loosen slightly.

“Tony Stark?” she suggested bitterly.

“No. Blond hair. Punk.”

Skye thought about that, then- “Wait, Captain America?” The Winter Soldier didn’t confirm it, but the shifty look said it all. “You’re here to rescue him?” Skye guessed, voice a little disbelieving.

“No, I- Wait, he’s here?”

Skye had the strange feeling that there were two different conversations going on despite the fact that there were only two participants. “You’re not here to kill him?”

The Winter Soldier shrugged. The gesture looked mechanical and awkwardly unpracticed on him. “Didn’t even know he was here.”

She considered him, cocking her head to the side slightly. He was looking right at her so she tugged her arm slightly, checking to see if there was any give to his grip. There wasn’t. “Then what are you doing here?”

He shrugged. “Got hired to protect you. Figured that it was as good an excuse as any to get out of the jungle.”

Skye let her mouth answer on autopilot while her mind tried to fit the new information into her worldview. “Wait, what was someone called the Winter Soldier doing in a jungle? Aren’t they, like, usually tropical.”

“Learning that I hate snakes,” he answered, even though that was no real answer at all. Skye figured that she could let that question go in favour of a more pressing one.

“Who hired you?”

He shrugged again. That one seemed to come more easily. “Didn’t catch a name.”

Skye bit back a hiss of irritation. “How about a description.”

She honestly thought that he was going to deflect some more, so she’s more than a little surprised when he answers. “Middle age, male, caucasian, wearing a suit. Dark hair, black or maybe a dark brown. Unidentified accent, might have been put on.”

Skye considered. That narrowed the field but not much. Off the top of her head, she could think of three, maybe four people who it might be. It could be Coulson, though he probably wouldn’t bother to fake an accent, at least not badly. It could be her stepfather Cal, and he was completely nuts enough to both fake an accent and hire an infamous assassin to protect her. It could be her Dad, but she was pretty sure that he still thought she was a bad guy.

Her money was on Happy.

It was totally something he would do, right down to a badly faked accent. The question was whether he was trying to protect her at Pepper’s behest, or of his own initiative. He was one of the few - but increasing - people who could draw the connection between her and her Dad. Happy had been the one to pose as her Dad when she wanted to go to a playground, or meet other kids. He was basically a giant squishy teddy bear with a gun and would forever think of her as an eight year old with scuffed knees and pigtails.

But there would be no further answers, if the complete disinterest in who he was working for on the Winter Soldier’s face was real, so she set that aside too. “So how did you get in?” she asked.

He jerked the thumb of his flesh and blood hand over his shoulder. “Someone left the secret door open.”

Skye blinked. “There’s a secret door?”

“Yep. Would be more secret if it was-”

“Shut,” Skye jumped in. She was starting to think that maybe she would be safe with the Winter Soldier, at least for the short term. “Look, I was about to head on up into the castle, have a poke around and clear my head. We need to have a talk, and we need to have it where we’re not going to be interrupted.”

The Winter Soldier shrugged, the movement flowing and easy, finally dropping Skye’s arm. “Lead the way.”

Skye didn’t actually know the way but she figured that she had to have been heading in the right direction to have stumbled upon the Soldier. So she continued on in the same direction she had been going, feeling the fact that she had a potential enemy at her back very keenly but also knowing that there probably wasn’t anything that she would be able to do about it. The Soldier didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would respond to complaints, and Skye would have to go beyond her comfort zone if she were to try and force him.

She wasn’t prepared to do that so soon after losing control and coming close to bringing down the cavern.

Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration but she was seriously not liking her powers. Why couldn’t they come with an on/off switch, rather than Skye having to constantly hold down a metaphorical button to stop them from coming on? It never worked like this in the movies! There was a montage of hilarious semi-failures and then they pretty much got the hang of it and that was that. None of those superheroes nearly killed themselves and others by accidentally bringing down a cavern.

She stepped around at table still piled with bits and pieces of machinery, like a bizarro version of her Dad’s lab. She peered into the gloom, hoping to see something, and she was rewarded. There, slightly off to the left was what looked like a staircase, twisting off slightly into the darkness. She suspected that was where the Winter Soldier had come from, and he certainly made nothing that was even remotely like a process as they entered the stairwell.

Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out. Most of all, don’t think about the notorious assassin right behind her. So, breath in and breath out. Breath in and breath out. Keep her heart rate steady and try to to panic. The last thing she wanted was for her powers to make another go of it. They were not safe and they were making a good case for being more trouble than they were worth.

The dark, slightly damp stairwell opened up suddenly and Skye found herself in what looked like an old castle room, though the rickety tables had old nineties computers on them. Other than that, the room was cold, the stone of the walls seeming to be radiating the bone-iciness of winter despite the fact that summer was almost there. Skye wondered idly about the people who had used to live there, how they could have stood the cold all the time. Then again, Skye was an LA girl through and through.

“Are you just going to stand there?” the Winter Soldier asked from behind her. Skye managed to smother a scowl but it was a close run thing. It was hard to get a read on him. On the one hand, he seemed to be almost robotic in the way that he acted, but then there would be flashes of humanity. Skye wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it, or how far she could trust him. If at all.

She also wasn’t sure that she would be able to shake him before she was in a position where she needed to explain his presence to Ultron. That would be a fun conversation, even if it might help take her mind off the fact that Captain America, her Dad’s teammate, was aware of her parentage. If she didn’t think about it, then she wouldn't have to deal with it, not immediately.

She could imagine the looks on both Coulson and Simmons’ faces if she told them that. Skye knew it wasn’t the best idea that she had ever had but, frankly, she didn’t care. It had been a long few days and she couldn’t remember the last time that she had eaten, never mind slept. Actually, scratch that, she had eaten the hot pot when they had first arrived in Seoul, but that was pretty much it for at least forty-eight hours, if not more.

Skye was a little surprised that she hadn’t collapsed from exhaustion, hunger or dehydration yet. It really should have been too much for her. Maybe it had something to do with her superpowers, though she couldn’t see how. Or maybe it was just the general changes that came from being chosen by the Diviner. That was the only mildly plausible explanation that she had.

She forced herself to begin to move forward, if only so that she didn’t provoke the Winter Soldier. He claimed to have been hired to protect her but Skye figured that it was still to a good idea to test him and see how far she could push him, if only because he was the person who had come the closest to taking out Fury, aside from whoever had taken his eye. That, above all else, made the Winter Soldier someone that Skye really didn’t want to have to fight if she didn’t have to.

“So what’s your plan?” she threw over her shoulder as she began to poke at one of the computers. There was nothing there, even for her; completely wiped. She wondered whether that had been HYDRA or the Avengers.

“For?” the Winter Soldier asked, standing over by the secret door. He had his legs planted firmly shoulder width apart, arms held loosely behind his back. He was the very definition of at ease and Skye wondered whether the Russians had similar standards for training their soldiers. Then she decided that she didn’t care. His training was pretty much irrelevant; skills were something different altogether.

"For keeping me safe, since that's apparently what you've be hired to do. Because I've got things to do that are going to put me in danger, and probably make me more than a few enemies. I'm not staying out of harm's way just to make you feel better, or to make your job easier." She turned to get a better look at his reaction as he responded

The Winter Soldier shrugged. "The client didn't seem to mind that you would be in danger, just the opposite. He seemed to expect that you would be. So I figured that I would watch your back and take out anyone who tried to pull anything."

Skye mentally removed a point from Happy. The long-time bodyguard wouldn't be so accepting of Skye being in harm's way. She wasn't sure about her Dad or Cal. Coulson would accept it, so she mentally moved him to the top of the list of the most likely candidates. Not that it mattered really. So long as the Winter Soldier was telling the truth and he really had been hired to protect her it didn't really matter who had hired him or why. It still worked more or less in Skye's favor.

"And I suppose that you expect me to be happy that I have a notorious assassin at my back, armed and presumably with a gun trained in my general direction? It would be a much harder job if I decided to make it harder for you."

The Soldier's eyes narrowed. It occurred to Skye that he wasn't wearing the mask that had covered his face throughout most of the DC incident, and she was probably one of the few people who could pull him out of a lineup. Oh, and there was the little thing that he looked vaguely familiar, as though he was a friend of a friend, or someone she had seen once, long ago.

"I could always drag you off and lock you up somewhere. It would make my job easier if you didn't cooperate. It would give me an excuse to not let you have a choice."

That was not reassuring Skye, not in the slightest, but she figured that bravado was the best way to go. After all, it wasn't like she couldn't back it up. "Even if you managed to drag me off, there's an omnicidal AI not to far away who would hunt you to the ends of the Earth if you tried anything. I think it would be pretty difficult to collect your money if you're dead."

"I'm pretty tough," the Winter Soldier said.

Skye laughed. "Tough doesn't matter against someone who can replicate himself almost at will and can coordinate and attack with thousands on different bodies all working together seamlessly. Even if he couldn't download any tactics, and knowledge, he would still overwhelm you with sheer numbers."

"And are you sure that he will come to try and retrieve you once you are no longer useful to him?" the Soldier asked, voice flat.

Skye felt a crooked smile work its way onto her face. "One hundred percent."

The Soldier shrugged again. Skye wondered if he had any other response in him. Maybe he didn't even know how to nod. "Then I guess I will just have to work with you."

On a scale of one to ten, that was an eleven for suspiciously easy. "Right. You're just going to roll over like that. I don't suppose that has anything to do with the fact that your last living target is downstairs?"

The Soldier shrugged. "Don't care about that."

Skye raised a single eyebrow, a move that had taken her next to three months and a lot of surreptitious observation of May to perfect. "Despite the fact that he's the only target you've ever failed to kill, you expect me to believe that you don't care about Captain America."

"No. I just don't care about killing him. Would rather not see him, either."

"Then what do you care about?" Skye asked, watching closely. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something shift slightly in the shadows behind the Soldier. It took all of her training to not react and to keep her eyes on her alleged protector.

The Soldier hesitated for a second before answering. "I have questions that need answering. That might well be answered without me having to do more than guard you."

"That's not an answer."

The Soldier snorted. "It is. Doesn't mean that you have to be able to understand the answer."

"I don't understand it either," came a mechanical voice from the shadows behind the Winter Soldier.

The Soldier spun, lashing out almost automatically with his mechanical arm. It was clearly more reflex than thought, because Ultron caught it easily and the Soldier didn't follow it up. With his back to her, Skye couldn’t see the expression on the Soldier’s face but she could imagine all too well that he was narrowing his eyes, focusing completely on Ultron.

The two of them remained there, gazed locked in competition and trying to get the other’s measure, for what seemed like an eternity but was probably no more than a few seconds. Then slowly, agonisingly slowly, Ultron loosened his grip on the Winter Soldier’s fist, allowing it to fall down to his side. They continued to assess each other for a few more seconds before Ultron looked over at Skye.

“Far be it from me to deny you extra protection,” the AI said. “You may keep him, so long as he stays out of Captain America’s sight.”

“It’s not like he can do anything,” Skye said. “Also, he’s an international assassin, not a puppy.”

“I can think of worse guard dogs,” Ultron replied, and he didn’t need to flicker his eyes - or the lights or whatever they were - back at the passage for Skye to know  who he was talking about.

“I guess we have to keep Ward, now that he knows something I would rather not get out.”

“Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead,” the Winter Soldier said. “I’ll take the AI.”

“You couldn’t take me if I was blindfolded and down to only one body,” Ultron said.

“More importantly, murder is not a viable solution here,” Skye said, really not wanting to witness what would happen if Ultron and the Winter Soldier started getting competitive. That could only end badly.

“It isn’t?” Ultron asked.

“What kind of supervillain are you?” the Winter Soldier asked at the same time.

“It isn’t, and the kind that would like to live to a ripe old age. That’s not going to happen if we start killing off allies, even ones who toyed with my affections and nearly got me killed.”

The moment Skye saw the look on Ultron’s face, she knew she had made a mistake. “Ward did what?” he asked, voice far too quiet to bode well.

Oops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, for those who missed it, the Winter Soldier was hired by Loki, but neither he nor Skye have any way of knowing that. She's made the best guesses she could given what she knows.


	13. This Is Real, This Is Your Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony doesn’t know kids cartoons as well as he thinks he does, the Avengers really need to watch the door better and Thor brings the mood down.

Shockingly, the Avengers were fighting again. Once again, it was amongst themselves.

To be fair - something that Tony loathed being - Cap was the one who would stop them when they were too much at each other’s throats, and he was a little indisposed. Man, he was going to be all uptight and self righteous when he got back. Tony could already picture his disappointed face, not to mention rattle off the main points of the following lecture on not creating another Avenger.

And people thought he wasn’t a god. He totally measured up to Thor. In every way, if you know what he means. His eyebrows waggled pretty much of their own accord.

Over on the other side of one of the banks of computers, Bruce glanced over at him but looked away when he didn’t say anything. Clearly he had adjusted to not always being privileged with the gift of hearing the glory that was Tony’s interior monologue. He didn’t even seem to realise how deprived he was, after the Mandarin Affair. Not that Tony had an affair with the Mandarin; he wasn’t twenty-three anymore. He was mature and adult now.

Unfortunately, with maturity came understanding, and he was aware of just how bad the situation really was.

Tony put that at the back of his mind. It had taken him time and a lot of cajoling to persuade Bruce that it was a good idea to put JARVIS inside the thing in the cradle when Nat and Clint brought it back, along with the two unholy terrors who wanted Tony's blood. Once the group arrived, Tony would have another audience that would need persuasion, and he was fully aware that it would be a tougher one than his fellow mad scientist.

As unkind as it was to think, it was actually a good thing that Steve had been the one that had been captured. Of all of them, he was the one who would have most objected to Tony messing around with AIs again, because Steve didn't get it. Tony had read all the notes regarding project rebirth, knew why Erskine had chosen Steve.

But valuing the strength as opposed to taking it for granted wasn't the same thing as valuing progress, as getting why humans needed to push further, try different things. In any dilemma, Steve would always choose the right choice for that problem, rather than taking the smart one that could protect them further down the track. Tony suspected that it was a trait that he would take to his grave, and Tony worked hard to make damn sure wasn't his as well.

Steve would - hopefully - be fine. Ultron looked like the kind of dick who gloated, same as Loki. Maybe it was a requirement  before they could take the supervillain entrance exam. No doubt Nat would want to put together a rescue operation because taking down SHIELD had apparently made them besties. Tony wouldn't be surprised if they braided each other's hair in between missions. And when the Black Widow wanted something, so did Hawkeye. True facts, as the kids would say.

In a completely unpredictable turn of events, it was the male Maximoff that arrived first, speeding into the lab and scattering what few papers Tony hadn't been able to digitise. Tony supposed that he should thank the speedster: now he had an excuse for not signing all the documents that Pepper left there for him. Totally wasn't his fault they got run over by a superfast man who hated him.

Better than the dog ate the paperwork excuse, anyway.

"Stark," the speedster said, the Sokovian accent really well suited to sneering. Tony wanted an accent, maybe even that accent. How much did one cost? Oooh, maybe he could build something that make the person's lips twist- another time. When an AI was threatening imminent world destruction.

"Road runner," Tony said amiably. "Where's Wiley?"

"What?" the Sokovian asked.

Clint strode in. "That makes no sense, Tony."

Of all the nerve! "Please, he'd look great in purple."

"Hey! I've got dibs on purple," Clint protested before shaking his head. "No, but Wiley E. Coyote and Road Runner don't get along."

Tony blinked. "Lies!"

Clint rolled his eyes. "Unless there's something the tabloids don't know, I've watched the cartoons more recently than you."

"There are many things the tabloids don't know, starting with the incident involving the cancan dancers, forty kilos of spaghetti, and alien prince and an archer."

"You can't prove that happened."

Tony grinned, stroking his beard. He didn't get why people didn't go for the beard. What would he stroke without one? ...And that was why Pepper called him a walking sexual harassment lawsuit. Among other things. "Photos, Barton."

"You swore that you had deleted all those!"

"The videoes, Barton. You never said anything about the photos."

Clint opened his mouth, probably to continue arguing but Natasha cut in with a sharp "boys!"

"Are they always like this?" the other Maximoff, Wendy, asked.

"Unfortunately," Natasha replied. "We've done our best to try and tame them, but there's only so much which can be done."

"Aww, Nat-"

"Don't even bother, Clint. We've got a cradle to deal with. Have you figured out how you're going to destroy it?"

Tony glanced over at the still-silent Bruce. "Funny story-"

"Oh, hell no," Clint spat, glaring at him. "You had better not be suggesting something along the lines of doing exactly what created Ultron in the first place."

"We're not. We weren't ever close- You know, whatever. That's not the point. The point is, what's in the cradle is vibranium. There is nothing that we can do to destroy it. So lets use it."

"Tony!" Clint exclaimed. It was far less potent than it otherwise would have been, since Tony had built up a tolerance to Steve-level disapproval. Compared to that, Clint was just small fry.

"Let him finish," said Natasha, of all people. Tony looked over that the lying, backstabbing spy who he totally didn't forgive. She looked as though she was seriously considering it.

Russians. He wasn't sure what about them but still: Russians.

"Nat-" Clint began whining.

"We can't defeat Ultron on our own," she said voice clipped. "There were only a few bots there and we could barely hold our own. By now he will have a production line somewhere and there is nothing we will be able to do if we are even more outnumbered than we were."

"And what happens if Tony makes another one? We will be even more outnumbered!"

"We won't-" Bruce started.

"We turn them against each other," Natasha said, with all the stoic grimness of a Russian. There was a moment of silence because even Tony wasn't sure what to say to that.

"It dreams," Wendy said, breaking the- Tony refused to think the word spell, not even in that context. There was no such thing as magic, there was no such thing as magic, there was no such things as magic.

"What dreams?" Clint asked, sounding somewhat more friendly with her than he did with even Tony. Apparently, they had bonded.

"The... man in the cradle. It dreams."

"Its alive already?" Bruce said with a little bit of alarm. Just a little bit, though. Because, mad scientist. Tony didn't get that other people didn't get that mad scientist were a breed apart. Everyone acted as though the only interesting thing about Bruce was that he occasionally got big and green. As far as Tony was concerned, that was the least interesting thing about him.

Tony hadn't yet persuaded Bruce to leave Tony his brain when he died, but Tony was working on it. Just, you know, a side project.

"Alive. Not aware," Wendy said, moving towards Bruce, who was totally not okay with that and sent her a glare worthy of Fury. Tony resisted the urge to applaud. And they said he had no self-control. He had plenty, thanks. He just didn't bother to use it most of the time.

"Is it dangerous?" asked the other Maximoff, speaking properly for the first time.

"Of course it is!" Clint asked but he was paid the appropriate amount of attention, which was zero.

"It will be once Stark gets ahold of it."

"Hey!" Tony protested, because he felt as though he had just been insulted, though he wasn't entirely sure how. "I only make dangerous things when I intend to."

Clint coughed something that sounded suspiciously like 'Ultron', that wasn't a dead horse that had been so thoroughly flogged that it was thinking of getting a restraining order against Clint. Not that it could, cause it was dead. Unless it was a robot. A robot horse-

Pepper had once, after being treated to the awesomeness that was Tony's thought process, claimed that people would take him far less seriously if they knew how he thought. Rhodey, Happy and Skye - traitors, the lot of them - had agreed. Tony knew they were just jealous their brains weren't as creative as his. And that wasn't just what they were calling it nowadays, Rhodey! Ooh, he should probably call Rhodey, tell him not to lend Skye any military equipment if she called. Granted, he never had for Tony but that was because Rhodey thought- Actually Tony wasn't sure what Rhodey thought but-

Snap.

Tony blinked, eyes focusing on the fingers that had just snapped in front of him. He looked along the arm to Natasha. Oops. Looked like he had missed something. Ah well, probably wasn't that important.

"I thought that the phrase 'snap out of it' was a metaphor," Speedy said.

"Tony can get a little out of it," Clint said, his teeth slightly more clenched than they needed to be. From the glare he shot Speedy, at least Tony wasn't the only one he wasn't happy with.

"You're just jealous of the brilliance, Barton," Tony said automatically.

"Ultron," he said again, as though he hadn't been thoroughly disproved. Tony tuned him out for that exact reason.

"So, Romanoff, you going to help us out here?"

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Not until I know what you're actually going to do. Call me cautious."

"Guess who we found, Cautious," Tony said, bringing out the slim piece of plastic and flicking it so that the cool and strangely... warming image of JARVIS was projected. "JARVIS is back."

Natasha looked at the pulsing orange matrix for a second before turning to him. "Do it."

"Nat!" Clint yelped.

"No," Wendy said, looking more hungry than threatening as she moved towards the cradle. "That is too dangerous."

"I suppose you've got a better idea how to stop Ultron?" Bruce said, leaning forward on the bank of computers and, whoa, that tone was definitely not showing his belly. Go, Brucie.

"We have an ally," Wendy said. "She is trying to find out exactly what Ultron's planing, stop him completely."

"An ally?" Bruce said dubiously. "And who exactly is this miracle worker? How are they planning on doing it, reading Ultron's mind?"

"Processing center," Tony corrected automatically. Bruce paid him no attention which, not gonna lie, he found a little hurtful.

“Quake has been trying to stop him all along,” Speedy said.

The world stopped. Tony blinked. Something tightened in his chest, as though the arc reactor was back and squeezing his chest cavity again. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.

Could it?

Bruce rolled his eyes. He must have been for shaken than Tony had thought because that was very unlike him. “Yeah, right.”

“What exactly do you mean?” Clint asked, and Tony was glad that he asked because he didn’t think that he could ask any questions for himself at that moment.

“She’s been playing Ultron all along. She even helped us prepared for leaving, once we realised that we had made a mistake,” Speedy said. “She helped us get money and fake papers so that we could do more than just run from Ultron, to hide from him as well.”

“This was the plan all along?” Natasha asked. At least, that was what Tony thought that she asked. It was kind of hard to tell over the roaring in his ears.

"Her plan," Speedy said, insistent. As though that was important to him, and Tony was aware that he was just noticing things so that he didn't have to think about the implications if the Maximoffs were right.

"Yeah, I don't believe it," he said. Because the alternative was that all the pain, all the disappointment and the guilt that had been bad enough that he had actually done manual labor, had all been for nothing.

He had chopped a lot of wood out at Barton's farm. For most people, that wasn't anything significant but Tony abhorred manual labour. Besides, it was May. Summer was just around the corner. What did the Barton's need wood for? But Tony had needed to chop something, or maybe to just have a go at something with an axe. Skye-

He cut that thought off.

Wendy looked over at him, a sneer on her face. "I'm not surprised that you don't believe in selfless."

Tony snorted. "No, I don't believe that Quake is a mole. Either you're lying, or she was lying to you. Also, hello, Iron Man. Did you miss that?"

“Quake put herself in danger for the world, let her name be dragged through the mud, and you think that prancing around in a metal suit makes you selfless?” Wendy asked, and Tony was starting to wonder if there had been sneering classes, and he hadn’t been invited. Nah, that was ridiculous; who wouldn’t invite him?

“You still haven’t proven that she is actually on our side. Maybe she’s even playing both?” That wasn’t much better than the idea that she was working with Ultron, but it was a lot better than the idea that she had been willing to burn their bridges- No. Stop. It wasn’t true and thinking wasn’t going to help.

“Tony,” Natasha said. For a moment, he thought that the tone indicated a warning, then he realised that the stiffness was anything but. Natasha - Natasha Romanoff - was uncomfortable. “I think its time you tell us how you know Quake.”

Next to her, Clint shifted. He knew. He was the only one who knew, since Agent didn’t seem to be around. Tony wondered whether he got it, understood why Tony needed so desperately for her to not be helping, for her to be bad. Then Tony remembered that he didn’t care, didn’t care about what anyone thought of him, not even for archer-assassins who had managed to hide an entire family from Tony ‘God’ Stark. He wasn’t impressed. He would be, when everything quietened down and he could kidnap Clint to interrogate him as to how he had pulled it off, but he wasn’t at that moment.

Everyone in the room was looking at him. Granted, that was something that Tony normally encouraged but didn't they realise that he was trying to think, to solve the problem or problems or however many villains-issues-threats they were up to. They all stood there like they always did, reacting rather than acting, trying to solve issues once they had already killed people and someone needed to get these people an engineer's education.

If you waited until after the problem had already killed people, then what you were designing was bad. That went for world orders too.

"Tony," Bruce prompted. Great, now even his sciencing partner was abandoning him. So much for bonds of engineering and bio-whatsits that Bruce did.

"They need to know," Clint said quietly, and Tony felt his head swing around of its own volition. "I promised I'd keep it to myself so long as it didn't pose a problem and it wasn't relevant. Unlike you, I didn't try to look for loopholes. But this is relevant now, Tony, no matter what you might think."

"How is it relevant? She's just a girl who made a bad decision. How can how I know her possibly be relevant?"

"Because it's stopping you from giving the possibility that she might actually be undercover the consideration it deserves," said Natasha.

"You just think she might be because you are the one who's usually getting friendly with the bad guys!" Tony could feel himself running a hand through his hair, making it stick up on end more than usual. It wa a nervous tic that he had been trying for decades to kick. Hadn't worked yet.

"Quake somehow used the scepter from a distance to put me under," Natasha said.

You could have heard a pin drop. It was clear from his lack of outrage that Clint had already known that, but the Maximoff twins did a double take. Bruce's stance shifted, not happy about anything that might have put his potential snuggle bunny in danger, a relationship that Tony felt like he needed to protest yet again.

"The stone is embedded in the forehead of the being in the cradle," Wendy said at last. "I do not know how Quake used it."

The two former SHIELD agents stiffened. "Its in there?" Barton asked, taking a large step away and eyeing it warily. Apparently it hadn't left a nice taste in Natasha's mouth either because she shifted away slightly. It was the equivalent of running away screaming in anybody else.

"I had her," Natasha said, almost idly. "I wa about to neutralise her for good." Even with all of Tony's intellect, it took him a few seconds to realise what Natasha meant by saying that she had been about to neutralise Skye.

Clint caught him in his lunge. Tony wasn't wearing any of the armor, had some fighting training but nowhere near as much as Natasha. He would never have been able to take her and it was incredibly stupid of him to try but that impulse hadn't come from his considerable brain. She had tried to kill Skye; Tony had tried to kill her. That was an equation that made sense.

"Easy, Tony," Clint said, one arm tight around Tony's upper torso, Clint standing just behind him so he could speak low and no one else could hear. "I get it, but Nat didn't know. And they all need to."

Speedy was right in front of him, glaring. "You want us to believe that you actually care?"

"I don't care what you believe," Tony snapped. It wasn't one of  his better comebacks.

"I going to let you go now," Clint said from behind him. "Don't try to kill Nat. Speedy Gonzales, sure, no one can blame you there, but not Nat."

"Hey," the Sokovian protested.

"I don't care what superpower you have, Nat's scarier," Clint said firmly. Which, yeah, that was true but also Tony wasn't in the mood to be complementary to Natasha after trying to kill Skye, no matter how deserved the compliments were.

"Are you going to tell us now?" Bruce asked. "You clearly know her well."

Tony grit his teeth. Surely there must be a way out of it. He would lie, except Barton already knew the truth. He would evade, except they were all dedicated to getting it out of him. Tony was nothing if not stubborn but-

Would they be as likely to try and find a permanent solution for Skye, no matter what side she turned out to be on, if they knew?

"Okay." He took a deep breath. "Okay. You can let me go, Barton," he said. When the archer was a little too slow about it for Tony's liking, he shot the other man a glare. Clint was unruffled.

Speedy rolled his eyes. "Stop being melodramatic and just say it."

His sister turned to look at him incredulously. "Did you, of all people, just complain about someone else being melodramatic?" Tony wondered why they were speaking in English between them when their native language, the language they would have spoken most often, was Sokovian, with Russian as a second language. Tony mentally slapped himself. He needed to focus. Just because he didn't want to do it was no reason to let his mind wander.

Tony needed to say it. He needed to say it then and there, before he lost his nerve. "She's my daughter."

The entire room stilled, everyone turning to look at him incredulously, bar Clint who gave him a long look and then a firm nod of respect. That was... novel. Tony was brilliant, could force most people to acknowledge his brilliance, but he very rarely got any respect. He supposed that he... respected Clint too. Not that he would ever say as much. He had far too much fun bantering to ever risk that by saying something soppy.

"Bullshit," Speedy said, the word almost torn from his throat. "I don't believe it-"

"Tony," Natasha said carefully. "If there was ever a time to not play jokes, this would be it. So I really, really hope that this isn't a joke."

Bruce was scrutinising his face. "If that's the case, I think we needed to go somewhere quiet and have a drink - preferably non-alcoholic - and talk about this calmly."

Wendy's eyes flashed red for a moment. Tony jumped, as though someone had shocked him with a cattle-prod. he didn't managed to stifle the very unmanly yelp. "He's telling the truth," she said.

"Did she just read my mind? Did you just read my mind? Brucie, tell her that isn't on!"

Bruce looked away from Tony. His face was only slightly tense by the standards of others. By Bruce standards, he was practically pummeling her into the floor. "Don't ever try to use your... magic on anyone on this team," he said with all the authority of Captain America.

Also, he managed to turn the word magic into a swear word. Bruce was awesome. They were going to need to get little miss teenage witch after everything had gone down, and run some serious tests on what she could do. Tony refused to believe that there was something called magic out there but, if there was, he wanted to know how to fight it.

"Quake is your daughter?" Natasha asked, frowning, as though that wasn't what Tony had said and Wendy had confirmed.

"What? Surprised that I could keep it from SHIELD?" Tony asked, a little nastily. He was really, really glad that he had made the choice all those years ago to keep Skye to himself. He hadn't known about HYDRA, but he was smart enough to pretend that he had noticed something, had some inkling, and only the Avengers and associated staff would call him out on it.

"Surprised you could keep it from the paparazzi," she shot back. She looked him up and down meaningfully. "Its not like you've managed to keep anything else from them."

"Oh, no" Tony shot back. "The paps got some naked photos of me. Clearly that's comparable to keeping my daughter out of the limelight that I never could escape."

There was a beat of silence as they all looked at them surprised. Tony bit back some sharp comment about how he wasn't a robot, how he did have emotions thank you very much, no need to act so surprise. But he surprised himself by finding the little used on switch for his brain-to-mouth filter.

Natasha looked slightly chastened. Tony didn't trust it. "Sorry."

"Can we get to the real issue here?" Tony asked, feeling more than a little uncomfortable.

"Why don't you think Quake- Sorry, the SHIELD file said her name was Skye?" Bruce asked.

"Yeah, Skye. Skye Stark."

Bruce nodded, a few shades of sympathy peeking out from under his newly-regained serenity. "Why do you think that Skye is really working with Ultron?"

Tony opened his mouth to speak.

"Because he's an idiot. Or certifiable. Or a certifiable idiot."

Everyone's head whipped around. Pepper stood in the doorway to Tony's lab, hair escaping from its normally impeccable coiffure. Tony found it rather hot, something that wasn't hindered by the fact that the love of his life looked as though she very much wanted to stab someone. Possibly him.

“Now that is melodramatic,” Speedy said to his sister, who leaned over slightly and punched him. Tony couldn’t see if it was hard enough to make him wince, because he couldn’t take his eyes off Pepper.

“Pep, shouldn’t you be in the Bunker?” They both ignored the interested looks from Clint and Natasha at the mention of the Bunker. Tony dared them to try and find it.

“I was on my way there,” she said and a small smile working its way onto her serene face. It was possibly the most terrifying thing that Tony had ever seen, and he had flown a nuke into a wormhole. Had he ever gotten credit for that? “And it occurred to me to wonder whether anyone had thought to warn Skye that there was some kind of threat against the Avengers, but you especially. I thought that it might be a good idea after Seoul, and the fact that she didn’t call, not even to mock you getting creamed after Johannesburg.”

Tony winced at the mention of Seoul. He had seen the pictures. Skye had managed Avenger-level property damage there. “I wouldn’t say creamed-”

“Totally creamed,” said Clint. Natasha nodded firmly and Bruce looked faintly embarrassed.

“Imagine my surprise,” she continued as though she hadn’t heard any of them, still calm and terrifying “when she informs me that you made a fully sentient AI.”

“Err,” Tony looked around for help. Not a single Avenger had his back.

“And she wants to get to know him. But she said to tell Rhodey that his tank story was awesome.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “It was only one tank. No need to get dramatic.”

Pepper’s calm cracked, her voice slowly rising until she was almost screaming. “Tony, why was Skye sounding like she was saying goodbye?”

“Because she’s currently fighting side-by-side with an omnicidal AI bent on destroying the world, and she may or may not be trying to find out his exact plan so that he can be stopped,” Natasha summarized flatly.

“Wait, Skye’s fighting?” Pepper nearly shrieked. “She’s a hacker, not a fighter.”

“Pep, she was a SHIELD agent,” Tony snapped, even though he never ever snapped at Pepper.

There was a moment of silence as Pepper stared at him. "Skye?" she said incredulously. "She was so anti-establishment, it wasn't funny. She even admired the Rising Tide, for goodness sake."

"She ended up joining them," Natasha said. When everyone turned to look at her, she stared back flatly. "None of you read the file Coulson gave us, did you?"

"Wait, Phil?" Pepper asked. Oh yeah, Tony hadn't told her that. It would have meant trying to explain the 'Skye has superpowers' situation and she had made it very clear that the last thing that she wanted was for anybody to know. They argued kind of a lot, but Tony wasn't so much of dick that he would go and spill a secret like that.

"Agent's alive, currently the Director of SHIELD. Fury isn't used to not calling the shots though," Tony explained.

Pepper sniffed. "Fury isn't dead either, I take it. Is there anyone who's meant to be dead who is, in fact, dead."

Tony thought for a moment. "Loki."

"Oh, good. I was starting to think that death wasn't working right."

"Lady Pepper, you are indeed insightful," Thor boomed. Tony jumped, but then so did Clint. Natasha cocked an eyebrow. "But there are more pressing matters."

"How did he do that?" Tony asked Clint. "He's Thor. His epic strides cause mountains to shake and poets to spontaneously burst into epics. How could he have possibly snuck up on us?"

"Just so we're all on the same page. Thor, Quake is Tony's daughter. Also, she's probably on our side."

"Jury's out," Tony said. Pepper looked at him as though she was regretting not having a knife in her hand and refusing the knife throwing training when Natasha had offered.

"It does not matter," Thor said. "Regardless of what side she is on, she is in need of protection."

"Er, Thor, it does kind of matter what side she's on. I would really like for Ultron to wipe out the human race, if it's all the same to you," Clint said.

"Indeed, Ultron must be stopped. But there is a far greater threat."

Suddenly, Clint snapped to attention. "When I was fighting Quake, er, Skye-"

"When she knocked you out," Natasha said. Clint glared before continuing.

"She said that there was a threat, that Fury's experiments on the Tesseract drew the attention of a being named Thanos, said to ask you about it. She seemed... terrified." Tony felt his heart leap into his throat at the idea that Skye was scared. He forced it down, though he saw the same expression on Pepper's face as must be on his own.

Thor nodded gravely. "I know of him, though far less than I wish, and that is of what I wished to speak. Sit. Eat. Rest. This must be told but I do not think we have much time to waste."

"What about the cradle?" Bruce spoke up. "Tony and I were thinking-"

"No," Pepper said immediately. "If Tony was thinking it, then no."

"Yes," Thor said firmly. "I have seen this vision. The being in the cradle will be an ally to us. He will stop Ultron. But not yet. First, we must speak of the Infinity Stones."

"Stones? Like-" Clint started.

"The Tesseract. The stone in Loki's scepter." Man, Thor was on fire, with knowing more than anyone else and all the cryptic hints. If it weren't for the fact that it smelled like magic, Tony might have wanted to go 'take the waters', as Thor had put it.

"It is no longer in the scepter," Wendy said. "It is in the being in the cradle."

Thor paused. "He will be an ally. It will be safe there."

Natasha looked unimpressed. "That stone can take over people's minds. I think I speak for Clint as well as myself when I say that we really, really don't like it," she said, sending the cradle a poisonous look.

"There are more pressing matters," a bland voice said and everyone jumped again.

"I miss JARVIS," Clint said plaintively. "Remember when everyone used to get announced."

Coulson ignored him. "When the Black Widow was put under, Quake did not seem to be responsible. She ensured that Widow was, ah, cognitively recalibrated somewhere safe and protected. But her cons were still on, and Quake got us a message."

Everyone looked around. When Agent was ominous, things were pretty dire indeed. "What was the message?" Bruce asked.

"She said: 'the stone is alive.'"

There was a moment of silence while they all absorbed that. “Hell,” Clint said with feeling.

“That is… concerning,” said the pseudo-viking god who had so far run faster towards anything that became more dangerous. “But there is more cause for concern.”

“Infinity Stones,” Speedy said, testing the words. “Perhaps my English is not as good as I think it is but ‘stones’, that is plural, yes?”

Bruce looked really, really not happy. “Please tell me there are only three,” he said to Thor.

Thor looked… sorrowful, to borrow something he might say, at having to disappoint Bruce. “Indeed not. Asgard knows of five, though there may be more. Each are as powerful as the Tesseract or the Mind Stone.”

“The others?” Natasha asked. Tony looked over at Pepper to make sure that she was coping, now that he anger had been given the time to simmer down a little. She looked better. Tony was glad.

“The Mind Stone is here, the Tesseract safe within Asgard’s walls. The Aether has been placed in a collection with more protection than possibly even Asgard. One other has surfaced recently and a disaster was narrowly averted. It is safe within the vaults of the Nova Corps. They can be trusted. What concerns me more is the idea that they might be… alive, conscious, after a fashion.”

“Then I am sorry to be the bringer of even worse news,” Agent said. “Once Quake alerted Hawkeye to the potential threat, we attempted to get a message to Asgard.”

“You can do that?” Clint asked incredulously.

“We have our ways,” he smiled slightly. “Lady Sif is a friend, and she left the means to contact her. We sent the message and believe it to be received but there was no reply. Had it been a non-pressing matter, I would have been less concerned, but for a message to be ignored concerning Thanos-”

Thor paled slightly. “No such message would be left unanswered. That it is so means that neither Sif nor Heimdall is there. Sif travels on Asgard’s behalf, but Heimdall does not ever leave his post.” Thor shook his head. “I fear something grave must have happened.”

Wendy looked at him in alarm. “You’re leaving?”

Thor looked at her, startled by her contribution. The Maximoffs had been quietly huddling together, getting progressively smaller as the reality of the situation became more apparent. “No. Be at ease, little one, I would never leave friends when danger is at hand,” he said with a gentle smile before worry returned to his face. “Even if I wished it, I could not do so without Heimdall.”

Pepper took a few steps and gently squeezed Thor’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “And I hate to bring this up, but you never said what any of this had to do with Skye?” At Thor’s confused look, Pepper corrected herself. “Sorry, Quake.”

“Ah. That was another part of my visions.” He turned to Tony, his face a mixture of regret and determination. “She must be protected from Thanos at all costs. I do not know what his plan is, but my vision called her ‘the key to the Infinity Stones’. Thanos can never learn of her existence.”

“What? What does that even mean? What will happen if he knows?” Tony felt the fear bubbling up through him. He didn’t want to have judged Skye too harshly, but he wanted her safe above all else.

Thor looked at him with… yes, sorrow was the right word again. “The efforts he made to secure Midgard for Loki to rule will be paltry in comparison. It will not be one army, it will be every army that the most powerful weapons in the Nine Realms can secure. It will be devastation for every planet, in every realm. None will be left untouched.”

“And Skye?” Pepper asked again, her voice breaking. Her legs seemed to give out, dropping her into one of Tony’s swivel chairs. Thor knelt down in front of her, gently taking her hand.

“I fear, Lady Pepper, that the fate of the Nine Realms will be nothing compared to the horrors Thanos has in store for her should he collect all of the Infinity Stones. Should Thanos be victorious, all will suffer, but none more so than her.”

Tony felt the last of the blood drain from his face. There was a space lunatic hungry for power out to get Skye. Well, that just wasn’t on.

They simply had to deal with Ultron first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urgh, everyone was just being so melodramatic. And then I wanted to end it when Pepper arrived but that was too short and then Thor arrived and he just would not shut up. So a few hours later than I thought but it is up. Next one is Sunday, so I better get on that.
> 
> Schedule of remaining chapters:  
> \- Chapter 14 - 12th of July 2015  
> \- Chapter 15 - 19th of July 2015  
> \- Chapter 16 - 26th of July 2015  
> \- Chapter 17 - 2nd of August 2015  
> \- Chapter 18 - 9th of August 2015  
> \- Chapter 19 - 16th of August 2015  
> \- Chapter 20 - 23rd of August 2015


	14. How Long Will You Play This Game?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Skye keeps the peace and Tony is a little too keen on the mad science.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its late and a little shorter than usual but if I didn't get this out today then I wasn't going to be able to until the weekend so I stopped it a little early. On the plus side, next Sunday's chapter will probably end up being a little longer than usual to make up for it.

“Ward!” Ultron roared.

It was one of the strangest things that Skye had ever heard. While there was one Ultron unit up there in the small, frigid room, there were far more down in the dungeons. When they all cried out at once, they caused echoes, and a rolling wave of sound that shook the castle as surely as Skye’s powers would. It felt substantially different, though, and not just because the catalyst wasn’t in her but because there were several hundred origin points rather than just the one, the one that was her.

There were Ultron units down there with Ward.

The thought took a second to register with Skye and, by that time, she was already running past the Ultron that had followed her, and you’d better believe she was going to have words with him about that later. She couldn’t even say why she was rushing to help Ward. It wasn’t like she still liked him or had feelings for him. And, to be honest, it wasn’t as though Ultron hadn’t killed before so why-

Oh.

Skye knew why.

Ward was a reminder of the time before, a living talisman of why she needed to be better. He had fooled her once, had helped bring down SHIELD, and she hadn’t been able to stop him. That wouldn’t happen again. Skye would be better than that. She would train hard, fight smart, learn more skills than any opponent she faced. She had the motivation to be stronger, and that motivation was Ward, just not in a good way.

Besides, she was the good guy, even if she hadn’t been acting like it recently, and the good guys didn’t let other people get murdered when there was a chance they could stop it. Even when the potential victim was Ward. Saving Ward might even be the test to see who really was a good guy and who was someone helping out to feel good about themselves.

Because she was thinking, it took Skye a few moments to realise that she was covering a lot more ground that she normally would, a fact that was brought to her attention by nearly running into one of the tables piled high with HYDRA tech, when she should still have been in the stairwell. Without the time to stop, she jumped on pure instinct, her forward momentum flipping her over in mid air so that she had to scramble to get her legs back under her on the other side.

The few moments delay as she got back up to speed gave her the chance to eyeball the situation. All the Ultrons were massing over by the wall next to Captain America’s cell, where the largest on was pressing a figure that could only be Ward up against the wall. Skye bit back a yell, figuring that there was no point doing so until she got there.

And then she was there, almost in a blink. It was starting to get to the point when her body was moving as fast as, if not faster than, her mind. But that was something to worry about when Ultron wasn’t about to kill someone. She skidded to a stop next to the unit in question, and her appearance was enough of a shock for Ultron’s grip to visibly loosen as his head turned to look at her. Clearly he was just as surprised as her at how quickly she managed to get there from the upper part of the castle.

“Let him go, Ultron,” she said quietly, expelling what little air was left in her lungs.

“He hurt you,” the AI said simply.

“And will you go about hurting everybody who has ever hurt someone else, or everyone who has ever hurt me? Because either option is going to take a very long time.” Skye paused, considering another angle. “Besides, soon it’s not going to matter anymore.”

“The death I’m planning will be too quick for him,” Ultron said, the hand tightening again. Skye pushed back a moment of panic.

“If you’re going to protect me,” she said gently, “Isn’t it only fair that you only count what has happened since you’ve been in existence?”

Ultron seemed to hesitate, and Skye couldn’t for the life of her articulate what that idea was working, she was just thankful that she seemed to have found an opening.

“He hurt you in Seoul.”

“No,” she corrected. “He was annoying in Seoul. He’s annoying now. He will always be annoying, and a bit of a hypocrite. But that’s not the same thing as doing me wrong.”

Ultron’s grip seemed to loosen slightly more, almost imperceptibly, by Skye was so hyper aware that she managed to catch it anyway. She couldn’t believe that it was working but she very much needed it to not stop doing so.

"He hurt you," Ultron repeated.

"Yes, I-"

"No, Skye. He hurt you. Not a random bystander. He hurt you. I cannot allow that to stand."

Oh. Um. That was... not touching. Really. Not in the slightest. It only made it hard to help Ward.

Okay. Time to do what Skye really hated doing and would only do if the situation was really dire: time to ask herself 'what would Dad do?' Cause her Dad was slippery as an eel even without getting into his brains, just ask Fury. Or, you know, just ask Fury if you're one of the few people who both know he's alive and how to contact him. Skye's Dad always came out on top.

What would Dad do?

Skye's Dad would make both sides happy. Okay, no, he'd make sure that both sides achieved their goals, which wasn't exactly the same thing. So, what did Ward and Skye want? For Ward not to be too hurt. What did Ultron want? Some painful and humiliating punishment for Ward. So how-

Ding. If Skye was a cartoon, a lightbulb would have lit up above her head.

"How's this for a punishment?" Skye asked slowly. "You give him to me."

Both Ultron and a slowly blueing Ward looked at her. Skye suspected that it was only the fact that Ward didn't have enough air to speak that stopped him from making a tasteless joke. Ward had many problems, but not being able to shut up was right near the top. Neither of the two seemed to quite get what Skye was proposing. Ultron asked as much.

"What I mean is that Ward comes directly under my command. He does what I tell him and he comes to me for instructions. He's my minion," Skye clarified.

Ultron continued to look confused for a few seconds before he began to look amused. "And what would you do with him?"

Skye shrugged, trying to force her posture to remain as casual as possible. "Mainly just enjoy having a minion. I've never really had anyone to boss around."

"What about the Winter Soldier?" Ultron asked.

Once again, you could have heard a pin drop. Ultron's grip on Ward had loosened enough that he seemed to be getting enough air, though not quite enough that he could afford to gasp as he so clearly wanted to. Captain America, still locked in his cell despite the fact that the bars looked old and rusted and wouldn't pose much of an obstacle to a determined effort on his part to get out, didn't have the same compunction.

"You know the Winter Soldier?" he demanded. He seemed... somewhat more invested than Skye had expected. She knew that the two had fought - it would have been kind of hard not to given the footage of the Soldier attacking on the expressway - but Captain America really seemed as though he cared. Apparently he wasn’t the kind of guy who let an enemy get away.

"Just met him," Skye replied, careful not to give too much away, simply because she would have no reason to if she really was the bad guy. Doing so might tip Ultron off. "He's currently protecting me, though he seems to be rather like a cat. Comes and goes as he pleases."

For a second, Skye thought that Captain America might actually swear at her, or maybe do something stupid like try to break through the bars to try and throttle her despite Ultron standing pretty much right there. It was a vicious, desperate look that didn't belong on his face at all. It was enough to make Skye take an involuntary step forward.

"This is beside the point," she said as she found her voice again. "The point was what to do about Ward. If you really insist that he has to pay, then I say that his offence was against me so he's mine."

Ultron seemed to consider that, squaring it away against whatever rules of justice remained in his code. She wasn't entirely sure how his mind worked, how much of it was the coding that her Dad and Dr Banner had done and how much of it was the... thing in the stone. A stone which, she might add, she was very happy to have far away from her.

Ultron gave a sharp nod, his processors finishing what approximated to thinking. "Very well. He is your's."

Skye managed to stifle a sigh of relief, even though it was only Ward. She was still, by any measure she would use herself, the good guy. She had saved Ward's life, despite the fact that he was, well, Ward. She still felt a small thrill of vicious pleasure as Ultron removed the hand that had been holding him off the floor and he dropped, hands going to rub his neck. He didn't appear injured, but he did looked as though he had had a bit of pain.

“Let me make something very clear, Mr Ward,” Ultron said, his voice low and ominous. “I do not appreciate the way you have treated my sister, and it is only through her mercy that you are still alive. I suggest you remember that. You answer to her above all else. If she tells you to put a gun to your temple and blow out your brains, Mr Ward, you will do so.”

Skye made a noise of protest. She hadn’t asked for that, hadn’t wanted that. “That’s a bit much-”

Ultron continued on as though he hadn’t heard her, advancing on Ward and placing a hand on his shoulder, even as he continued to cough a splutter through the damage to his throat. His fingers tightened around Ward’s shoulder in a way that must be just as painful. Skye tried to say something else, but she was hit by a wave of dizziness. She blinked, trying to clear her vision but she was seeing spots, until those spots resolved into thin ropes, ropes that mainly ran between the Ultron units.

Suddenly, on lashed out, slamming into Ward’s head. Even though Skye seemed to be the only one who could see the connections, Ward’s head jerked back as though he had been physically hit. Skye bit back a yelp, but then the others would want to know what she had seen and she wasn’t quite ready to explain what she was seeing. She still wasn't entirely convinced that it wasn’t a delusion.

All the while, the rope between the main Ultron and Ward remained buried in Ward’s head, pulsing in a way that none of the others were. The former agent’s eyes were unfocused, possibly because he was still trying to get more oxygen, though Skye couldn’t help but feel that was a bad sign. Then the rope unburied itself from Ward’s head, falling so that it trailed to the ground and dissipated in a matter of seconds. All the others continued to act as though nothing had happened.

“You answer, completely, to Skye. Is that understood?” Ultron finished up. Skye blinked. All the thing with the rope - if it had even happened - had happened in a fraction of a second. She felt a little bit woozy, and so did Ward. He didn’t let it stop him from answering.

“Got it,” he said, voice clear despite the fact that he didn’t look as though he would be capable of standing on his own. Skye considered stopping Ultron’s dramatics but thought better of it. The former agent and the AI seemed to have found an equilibrium point which involved no one getting killed and Skye wasn’t willing to risk upsetting that.

She was willing to risk it to try and turn the situation to her advantage.

“I’ve just thought of a problem with all this,” she said slowly, as though the words were still coming to her. In a way they were. They were bubbling up slowly as the idea continued to percolate in her mind. “How am I meant to know what to tell Ward and the Winter Soldier to do if I don’t know the plan myself?”

For a moment, she had to force herself to continue breathing, even as all her instincts told her that she should be holding her breath. It was a risk, but she thought that her relationship with Ultron had reached the point where she could push, if she had a good reason. And she rather thought that needing to know what to order her two minions to do was a good enough reason, but that didn’t matter. What she thought didn’t matter. All that mattered was whether Ultron agreed.

He considered the implications of her words for what seemed like forever, watching her, weighing her. Skye tried to keep herself still and calm, as though she believe what she said but not as though she really cared strongly if Ultron chose not to reveal his plan to her. She needed to appear not too invested, unless she wanted to give him an inkling of how much it mattered to her. Eventually, he spoke.

“Very well. It is time I show you the plan.”

  
  


“You want to what?” Pepper asked, voice deadly. “The last time you brought something to life, it started this whole mess and know you want to bring something else to life. And this second being will have one of these Infinity Stone things embedded in it?” She looked at him as though she couldn’t believe how thick he was being. “Tony!”

Clint wondered if anyone would consider it to be bad taste if he went and got some popcorn to go with watching Tony get chewed out by his girlfriend. Even though he didn't actually suggest anything out loud, Natasha looked up from the beers she was opening so that she would glare at him. Once again, he couldn't help but wonder if she secretly had telepathic powers. It would kind of explain a lot.

"Anthony is correct," Thor boomed, in a fairly typical Thor fashion. He had perked up a bit when it was clear that the team would be taking the Thanos threat seriously. Tony might not be much of a team player, but Thor always fought with an army, even if he was usually the one leading it. "This being will be of much aid in our glorious fight against this Ultron."

"See? God has spoken. You can't argue against that, Pep."

"Tony, he's not a god. No offense, Thor."

Thor's smile grew. Clint took the beer that Nat proffered in his direction automatically, not taking his eyes off the entertainment. "None taken, my lady. I am indeed no deity."

"So what?" Tony asked. "He's still seen how this will go. JARVIS will have a body and we will be in a better position to save the day."

"To help Skye save the day?" Pepper asked, sweetly vicious. Clint took a swing of his beer to distract from the urge to take a step further away. He knew what dangerous looked like and, at that moment, it looked like Pepper Potts. Tony, however, was a braver man than Clint, or perhaps more foolish, because he didn't back down.

"To save the day," Tony said, glaring. "However that needs to be done."

"Even if it means working with Skye?" Pepper pressed.

Tony clearly ground his teeth. "If she turns out to be on our side - if, Pepper - then I will work with her."

"How magnanimous of you," Nat murmured quietly, so quietly that only Clint could hear. He held back a chuckle, because it wasn't polite but also because it wasn't ever appropriate to laugh at unhappy families.

Pepper, however, didn’t seem satisfied about that. “She is, Tony. But if she isn’t, I suggest you take a long hard look at your own behaviour. When she was younger, Skye didn’t know any better than to adore you but it's not coincidence that the two of you really started going at it the moment that she was old enough to properly understand your behaviour.”

Clint winced as Tony flushed an ugly red. “She-”

“Skye had several very good gripes about your behaviour.” Pepper’s glare intensified. It was a shame that Fury wasn’t around to take notes. “One of which she is reminded of every time somebody says her name.”

“Oh, come on, Pep, that was years ago and, besides, I was drunk-”

Pepper sniffed with the air of someone who had finished that same argument before and had been right all those times too. “Then you shouldn’t have been naming her.”

Bruce finally looked away from his tea, his face an agony of curiosity and the resigned knowledge that he was going to wish he hadn’t made the coming comment. “Skye’s not that bad a name.”

Pep moved her glare from Tony to look sternly at Bruce, Tony’s recent but probably permanent partner in crime. “Skye’s a nickname.”

Clint just couldn't help himself. "Then what's her actual name?"

Pepper turned to Tony. "Oh, you're answering this one."

Tony didn’t look too enthusiastic at the idea, which was rare when it came to something that he had done. From what Clint had gathered about his teammate’s relationship with his daughter, that wasn’t all that unusual. They had some serious issues. Clint kind of hoped that it was because of them rather than the usual way that daughter-father relationships progressed. It was a pretty shitty thing to hope, but he had a daughter of his own and he really didn't want to one day be the own who believed that Lila was a villain.

Tony ground his teeth together, a very un-Tony-like act, but he answered, albeit slowly and reluctantly. "Her name is Skynet Nemesis Stark."

There was a beat of silence.

"Oh, god," Bruce said as he buried his face in his hands. "The poor girl."

"I was drunk at the time!" Tony said.

Clint's face seemed to have frozen in a rictus of distaste. Maybe the wind had changed. "Dude, being drunk when you named your daughter doesn't actually make it better."

A small, tiny, flash of guilt passed across Tony's face but was gone so quickly that only years of trying to decipher Nat allowed Clint to catch it. Then Tony became even more defensive. "I thought it would be cool."

Clint snorted. "You wanna try saying that again? Maybe you'll be more convincing a second time."

The look he received for that comment was practically poisonous but so worth it. Tony sounded much more sincere as he gritted his teeth again, straightened his spine and gave a different answer. "I wanted Stark to be the least interesting part of her name."

And, just like that, all of the fun went right out of teasing Tony.

"Is this not a usual name amongst your culture?" Thor asked.

"Not... exactly," Bruce replied, weakly. "Its a reference to a... story." They hadn't spent a huge amount of time with Thor off the battlefield, certainly never with movie nights, so Bruce was obviously just as unsure as Clint whether Thor knew what a movie was. There was a time to try and find out, and then and there wasn't it.

Nat, of course, got that without a problem and moved to distract Thor. "What more can you tell us about these Infinity Stones, Thor?" she asked.

Tony, on the other hand, pouted when he realised that the attention wasn't still on him. "Hey, one thing at a time. What about Ultron?"

Nat sniffed in disdain, probably at the fact that he even had to ask. "Thor has assured us that the being in Dr Cho's cradle will be an ally. You are so fond of telling everyone that you and Bruce are mad scientists; go live up to your reputations."

Pepper still did not look reassured but Tony's pout became even more pronounced. "It feels a lot less like mad science when you know that it isn't going to go wrong," he grumbled, voice lower than it had been.

Clint bit back a grin. "I thought that you were so brilliant that you never had that problem. Everything you have ever done has gone right."

"Except Ultron," Pepper glowered.

"God, Pep-"

"Pepper," Phil said, speaking for the first time in awhile. "How about we go make some tea and I'll tell you about all of the times Skye saved my life?"

For a moment, Pepper was clearly torn between staying and stopping Tony from doing what the general consensus amongst the Avengers agreed needed to be done. Curiosity won out in the end, and she gave a graceful nod before positively sweeping out of the room. Piled together on the couch, the Maximoffs watched her go, a pile of tangled limbs and two huge eyes. They hadn't said much since they had arrived, which was a blessing in the case of Pietro, but he got the impression that they had taken to Quake and they weren't quite sure what to do with the information that Tony was her father.

"I want to be her when I grow up," the girl said, watching Pepper sweep out of the room with a mixture of awe and fear, the kind that Nat used to inspire in some of the younger agents, back before SHIELD had been brought down. Well, the old SHIELD, anyway. Her brother looked at her as though she was crazy, but then they were siblings. Clint had looked at his brother that way too, once upon a time. He could even remember it, time and distance having dulled the pain.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Clint took another swing of the the beer before leaning over to Nat. "Are you sure about what Stark and Banner are creating?"

Her face twitched slightly at Banner's name, the muscles in her face defying decades of training to try and force a smile through her poker face. So far, Clint had kept his thoughts on the idea of 'Nat and Bruce' to himself, but they could be best summed up as 'it was either going to go very, very right or very, very wrong.' But he was happy and, as Nat constantly accused him, Clint was the kind of guy who tried to spread the happy around. He wasn't as much of a matchmaker as Nat was but he wouldn't stand in the way of her finding her happiness.

The shock wave from the explosion hit before the sound did. Clint was knock off his feet but years of training and experience had him rolling behind cover without any conscious thought, Nat there before him as always. He really, really hoped that Nat would kick that habit someday. Laura was his wife and she had no problem with Nat being his partner, but there was one place that Clint didn't want Nat to beat him too. The place where all agents suspect that they would end up eventually: hell, or whatever else was there.

She whacked him on the arm. "Stop thinking morbid thoughts," she hissed, undoubtedly having seen it painted all over his face. "You are not Russian; it doesn't suit you."

"Hey, this is America. Just ask Steve when we get him back, this is the land of freedom and justice. I can think morbid thoughts even if they don't suit me."

Natasha shot him a look that made it all too clear what she thought of that. "Americans. Always thinking that the freedom to do something makes it a good idea."

Clint raised an eyebrow even as he continued straining his ears to hear if there were any more attacks coming. So far he had heard nothing. "You know that you don't actually have Russian citizenship anymore, right? Something about a little bit of treason?"

"I am Russian in my heart. It was the regime that I did not agree with," she said. Clint gaped at her; that was the most Nat had ever told anyone, even him, about the circumstances surrounding her leaving Russia. Even Fury hadn't been able to find out exactly what had happened, and he had all of SHIELD resources to use to find out.

Tony’s voice cut in. “If you two have finished with your heart-to-heart, come see what happens when the awesomeness of mad science meets the divine intervention.” Clint thought that he sounded a little bit more chipper but he was still nowhere near as snide and snarky as he normally was. Clint looked at his partner for her opinion on what they should do and she gave a half-shrug. If it wasn't Tony, it was a pretty convincing fake. Clint poked his head out from around the side of the couch. Sure enough, Tony stood there looking equal parts bemused and annoyed.

"That's what you call cover?" he asked.

Clint looked at Tony in disappointment. "You mean your couches aren't bulletproof?"

"No, of course- Wait, yours are? No, I don't believe it. That's totally something I would come up with."

Clint just ginned. He had, er, liberated his couches from a SHIELD storage facility after the organisation fell. Of course it sounded like something Tony would come up with. The reason his overstuffed armchairs were so old-fashioned was because they had been the height of style in the fifties, when Howard Stark had apparently lived an exciting enough life that he had thought it necessary to invent bulletproof couches. Clint had no idea why SHIELD had them rather than the Stark estate - maybe his wife hadn't liked them - but he had seen his chance and he had taken them.

Tony could always make his own.

"Stark," Nat said, drawing the inventor's attention away from Clint. He wondered if she knew where the new-old couches in his living room had come from before remembering that it was Nat, so it was usually best to assume that she was omniscient.

“Fine, fine,” he said, flapping his hands at the two of them, “Come see- Never mind. Looks like the show came to you.”

The show, as Tony called it, was humanoid but obviously not human. It wasn’t just the faded crimson of its skin; it was the whole package, from the way it held itself to the way its gaze remained fixed on a single point rather than flit around as human’s eyes naturally did. It didn’t look uncomfortable, exactly, but it did look like it would need to have a lot of very human concepts explained to it before it would feel at ease in the world it had been brought into.

It looked at the two of them. “Hello. You may call me Vision.”

Clint snorted. “Stark, you haven’t gotten any better at naming things.”


	15. This Is Your Last Warning, A Courtesy Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Skye realises something she already knew and calm before the storm ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urgh, I know, its late. Hopefully the next one won't be, though, since I've cleared up the work issue that has been taking up all my time the past week.

Skye’s heart was a drumbeat in her ears despite her best efforts to keep herself calm.

This was it. Everything she had  been working towards, her reason for getting involved in the first place, the possibility that she could contribute to stopping Ultron form doing more damage to the world than was strictly necessary. That had been the point, the whole point of everything. She had wanted this, wanted to help so very much that she had risked completely destroying her reputation amongst the good guys.

It was hard to believe that it was all finally happening.

Ward had slowly picked himself up off the floor, shooting her an inscrutable look, the kind that she knew she was never going to figure out what it meant. The Winter Soldier, who had caught up with them at some point, Skye couldn't even remember when, had slid in behind her like a silent shadow. She still wasn't sure how she felt having him at her back. She justified it to herself by arguing that there were far more efficient and easy ways to kill her than faking being on her side. It wasn't as reassuring as she would have liked.

Ultron shook his head. "The Soldier stays here. The only person who needs to know the plan is you."

Skye felt the air move as the Soldier shifted his weight behind her. Finally standing, Ward made a slight noise, one that might have been a protest but also might have been pain. "Fine," she said. It wasn't as though it actually mattered all that much, given that she was the only person there who knew she was a mole and so why it was so important to her that she find out.

"No," the Soldier said. Just that, nothing more.

Skye felt a frown push its way onto her face. "What do you mean 'no'? I'm telling you to stay."

"I do not take orders from you. I was hired to protect you, not do as you tell me."

Skye opened her mouth to argue, but Ultron got there first. "Very well."

The bots that had previously been ringing around the main unit when it had been holding Ward up in the air struck almost faster than Skye could see. In a matter of seconds, they had swarmed the Winter Soldier and pushed him back, opening the bars of the cage that held Captain America, shoving the ex-HYDRA assassin in with his organisation's top enemy.

"You can stay there," Ultron said, beginning to walk away.

Skye followed, pretending that she didn't have the urge to look back and watch what was about to happen.

 

The Soldier was phenomenally unimpressed with his luck.

The whole point of hiding out in South America hadn't been to encounter more snakes than he ever wished to but to avoid Captain America, the man who had once been the closest friend of the man whose face the Soldier wore. The odds that the Soldier would end up stuck in a cell with the very same Captain were unbelievably long, and he couldn't help the feeling that he had been played. By who, he wasn't entirely sure yet, but he was still pretty sure that so much bad luck didn't occur on its own.

"Bucky," Captain America said, sounding as though the Soldier had physically ripped the word from his mouth, which was grossly unfair. The Soldier wanted nothing more than to be on the opposite side of the planet, and would never have come it he had known that the Man from the Bridge would be there. "Jeez, Buck, I never expected to see you here."

The Soldier couldn't help but glare. "You weren't supposed to be here."

The Captain looked a little hurt. "You weren't looking for me?" he asked in much the same way that a kid would ask if his puppy had been drowned. The Soldier assumed anyway; he had no memories of having been a child. He barely suppressed a shudder at the thought.

The Soldier glared rather than respond. It was the Captain's fault that he had been subjected to all those snakes so the Soldier wasn't feeling at all well-disposed towards him at that particular moment. Not that he had ever been well-disposed towards him, given that his death had been the assignment. Anyone who tried to prove that he had saved the man's life was a lying liar and the Soldier dared anyone to try and prove it.

The Captain clearly got that the Soldier wasn't going to to reply because he let out a truly enormous sigh. The Soldier had the strange sensation that he shouldn't have been big enough to make that sound, despite the fact that he clearly was. Too many mind-wipes, probably. The Soldier was fully prepared to admit that he might have one - or one thousand - screws loose.

"Christ, Bucky-" he said it almost as a plea, as a prayer. The Soldier couldn't remember if either of them had ever prayed to a god, but he thought that all that he could remember happening to him suggested that there wasn't one. "It'll be okay. It'll all be okay, Bucky-"

"That's not my name," the Soldier said. "You may call me the Soldier, if you must call me anything."

Captain America flinched back as though the Soldier had physically struck him. No, it was worse even than that because the Captain was stronger than a normal man and could take much of what the Soldier could throw at him. He flinched back like he was a normal man whom the Soldier had punched. For a moment, the Soldier thought that he was going to progress but, instead, he opened and shut his mouth a few times before speaking in a very small voice.

"You were him once."

The Soldier considered that. He had thought at first that the whole situation might have been a trap, an attempt to steal his loyalty, but the wisps of half-memories, places and people he would never have known if he had never been anything other than the Winter Soldier. He had been something else, and the terrible itching he felt around the Captain - as though there was something there that he should be remembering but couldn’t quite manage it - lent credence to the theory that he had known the Captain in a past life.

In the end, his reply was: “It is unfair of you to call me that until it is certain that I may be him again. Unfair to me and unfair to you.”

For a moment, Captain America’s eyes watered and the Soldier reared back in alarm. Oh god, couldn’t he please start attacking? That would be so much better than the possibility of being stuck in a cell with a crying superhero. But the Captain’s tears didn’t spill over. Instead, he rubbed his eyes roughly, almost angrily. “You jerk,” he said, voice just as rough.

“Punk,” slipped out of the Soldier’s mouth without any conscious thought from him, any intent. He blinked at the Captain. The Captain blinked back. Where had that come from?

Captain America opened his mouth. “Bu-” He snapped his mouth shut again. Huh. He could respect other people’s wishes. Bonus: the Soldier seemed to have some kind of leverage over the superhero. That… had potential. Not enough potential to be able to get the Captain to leave him alone, but definitely enough to get the leeway to cause a little bit of mayhem.

‘Wasn’t like Steve had any legs to stand on when it came to causing mayhem’, a snide voice whispered at the back of his mind. The Soldier pretended he didn’t hear it. He might be a science experiment but he refused to acknowledge that he was hearing voices. He wasn’t nuts, after all.

“Don’t,” he said instead. The Captain’s jaw tightened, the muscles jumping in his face a perfect study for some anatomy class. The Soldier couldn’t help but find it disconcerting. “Perhaps someday.”

The Captain perked up. The Soldier wondered if anyone had ever told him how much he resembled a puppy. “Really?”

The Soldier gritted his teeth. “Perhaps some day. But not this one.”

The Captain looked at him, but the disappointment that had been there had faded a little. The Soldier had the disconcerting feeling that the other man not only saw right through him, but also saw things that the Soldier didn’t even know were there. He was forcibly reminded that hopeful and optimistic didn’t necessarily preclude being a hell of a lot more shrewd than that guileless face suggested.

‘Don’t underestimate him,’ the voice whispered again. The Soldier felt an echo of something, some emotion. Smugness, that was it. He forcibly pushed the sensation down. The man he used to be was just going to have to wait for a better time to begin coming back. The Soldier ignored the niggly feeling that it didn’t really work like that. That sort of thing wasn’t very helpful to anyone.

Captain America cleared his throat awkwardly, as though he wasn’t sure what to say now that they had arrived at something of a truce. The Soldier, not the most talkative of people anyway, was in no hurry to help him out. That wasn’t so much a matter of principle as not having any idea what to say either. The Soldier was a little bit embarrassed about the whole trying to kill him thing. Not the killing, mind, but the failing. He was a little… content that he hadn’t succeeded, but definitely embarrassed at the falling. That sort of thing didn’t usually happen to him.

“So- You said that you were protecting Quake?” Captain America asked finally, face hopeful. The Soldier couldn’t stand looking at it for more than a few seconds, so he turned back towards the bars of the cell, leaning forward to get the best view that he could. Outside, the man the machine had been holding up was still rubbing his throat. The Soldier suspected that he was an agent of some kind, given the combat clothes. Then again, pretty much everyone except Captain America was wearing that.

Clearly no one had ever explained the meaning of subtle to the superhero.

“If that’s her name, sure,” the Winter Soldier said. He noted idly that his way of speaking was becoming progressively less formal and more Americanised. He couldn’t say whether it was infiltration programming or the previous owner of the body reasserting himself. In the end, it didn’t really matter. There was nothing that that he could do to change the outcome either way.

"Um..." The superhero was clearly still casting around for any ideas on what to talk about. The Soldier was starting to get more than a little annoyed that he couldn't simply stay quiet. "How did you decide to protect her?"

"I was hired to," the Soldier replied. He was starting to suspect that even the most abrupt answers weren't going to discourage Captain America from talking.

"Wait, hired? By who?"

The Soldier shrugged, still not looking at the man who had known the man that he used to be. The movement felt stiff, unfamiliar. But then, a lot of things did. Even eating had seemed uncomfortable at first, as though HYDRA had never considered that he might need to be able to take care of himself when they wiped his mind. Probably because, for seventy years, he hadn't needed to.

The cavern rocked, taking the Soldier by surprise. He only just managed to stick out a hand in time to steady himself. Behind him, he heard Captain America go crashing to the ground with an embarrassing squawk. Unfortunately, the Soldier turned to late and he missed the opportunity to see the superhero embarrass himself. All he got to see was the aftermath, as the bright blue and red mass attempted to pick himself up off of the ground even as the ground continued to shake.

Outside the cell, the agent gave a low chuckle that made the hairs on the back of the Soldier's neck stand up, a feat in and of itself. "Sounds like our girl is pissed."

 

"What?"

Huh. Skye hadn't actually known that her voice was capable of going that high. You live and you learn.

"The city will be kept together-" Ultron began again.

"Yeah, no, I got that part. What I missed what the part where this is actually of any use whatsoever?"

The Ultron that she was looking at, the one that was currently the main one and of a much more humanoid design, seemed to frown at her, inasmuch as the AI was capable of frowning. "It will leave only the strong."

Skye stared at him. "You're talking about an extinction level event. And, yeah, I knew that. But this makes no sense. Even the dinosaurs dies out after the meteor crashed. All that survived was what was in the sea and, as little as I would want to fight a shark, they're not going to be all that useful fighting an alien warlord."

Skye blink. Actually, she would watch that movie. Then again, she had actually liked Sharknado and all the sequels which, the rest of the team had informed her, meant that they didn't need a psych eval to know that she was nuts.

"Some land dwellers will survive," Ultron replied, bringing her back to the conversation at hand.

"But very few, and how will they survive without food. Cause most people aren't going to die from the impact, they'll die from lack of food caused by the lack of sunlight completely destroying the food chain."

Ultron hesitated. Score one for human commonsense over gigantic computer processing power. Then he seemed to make a decision. "Not requiring fuel is another part of strength."

Skye was encountering a problem: her eyebrows were already as high as they would go so she had no way to express her further disbelief. “There is no way that you are going to find anything on Earth that is both strong enough to withstand a meteor and that doesn't need sustenance. You're not giving the Earth the best chance of staying free; you're wrapping it up with a neat little bow for this Thanos."

"I am NOT!" The suddenness with which ultron went from explaining to yelling was so shocking that Skye took an involuntary step back, despite the fact that she could easily have thrown him away with her powers if he had chosen to actually try to hurt her. "No. No, Skye, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. It will work, it has to work. Thanos cannot be allowed to, allowed to-" He cut himself off, beginning to pace back and forth in front of the machine that was meant to make the city fly.

"Allowed to what?" she asked cautiously. There was something in the franticness, the manic way in which Ultron's step jittered as he walked, that seemed so desperately familiar, like she had seen it- Like she had seen it a thousand times before, as her Dad had paced and tried to figure out why his invention wasn't working, why the laws of physics weren't bending to his will.

For two people who didn't actually share any DNA, there was a terrifying amount of similarity between them. Skye would say it was as good as genetic.

"I- I- I cannot say. Its as though a section of my memory has been corrupted. There is something there, something that I should know. Something that I do know, I just can't access it." Ultron turned and slammed a fist into the stone walls of the church. "I know this. Why can I not remember it?"

Skye took a careful step forward, keeping her movements as smooth and even as possible. The last thing that she wanted to do was startle Ultron when, if he had been human, he would have been physically tearing his hair out.

"Would you like me to have a look at your code?" she asked, careful to keep the hope from her voice. But the hope was there, pounding away at the back of her mind. If she could get into his code, she could rewrite it. She could stop it all, stop Ultron without anyone else having to get hurt. It would be anticlimactic, but she'd take that any day over a dramatic battle that would hurt and kill a lot of people.

"No, that's okay," he said, the franticness of his movements fading a little. "Thank you for offering, Skye. There are more important things to deal with now. This needs to be done. I had a good reason to make that decision and I trust my own judgement. This will happen. This risk needs to be taken. Thanos must be stopped at all cost."

Skye tore her gaze away from Ultron to look back at the machine, the rough metal stopping it from gleaming in what little light infiltrated the ruined church. It looked like some holy relic, placed in the center of the hallowed ground. A chill skittered up her spine. That machine, that inanimate object of destruction, looked like something to be prayed to.

She tried to not draw parallels with the machine given life that was still pacing beside her.

"Is it worth it?" she asked quietly. "Will it be worth stopping him if there is nothing left in the wreckage?"

Ultron paused, turning to look at her. Skye only saw the lack of movement then the brief movement again out of the corner of her eye. She still couldn't tear her gaze away from the machine. It felt as though there was something scratching away at the back of her mind, a warning and a strange sense of jubilation. The feeling of wrongness that had been her constant companion ever since she had gained her powers intensified. There was something very, very wrong, she just couldn't put a finger on what it was. She had a flash of clarity.

That was the sensation that Ultron was describing.

He was talking about memory banks that couldn't be reached but Skye was experiencing the same thing. They both had something that had been walled off, something that was scaring them. Ultron was reacting by turning the terror into fuel for his desire to do anything that might be able to stop Ultron. Skye... Skye was just scared. It was not a feeling she had known before joining SHIELD, but she sure knew it know.

"It needs to happen, Skye. Thanos must be stopped. This is how it has to be done."

Skye wrenched her gaze away, the pain almost physical. Her eyes alighted on Ultron, his face as earnest as it could be made. He believed that. Her genuinely believed that, but there was something else at play, something that was distorting them something-

Oh.

She had felt this fear before. She had felt it when she had brushed up against the Infinity Stone in the cradle, when she had realised that everything that made Ultron alive rather than just a machine was patterned on it. She had felt it again when the Stone had reached out and taken control of the Black Widow when the Widow had come close to killing Skye. She knew this fear.

There was something that had been in both her mind and Ultron's. The Infinity Stone. Everything - all the destruction and death that would be the result of Ultron's actions - was caused by the Infinity Stone. It was alive. It had a will. It wanted something and it was playing with them all to get it. It felt. And what it felt was fear.

It was scared of Thanos.

Skye didn't know how well its consciousness could be compared with a human one, but the Stone didn't seem to feel any compunction about offering up other beings to try to save itself. Not particularly altruistic. Then again, it was a stone. Altruistic wasn't one of the first characteristics that Skye thought of when she saw one.

Skye cleared her throat, trying to remove the lump. She didn't think that Thanos would believe her if she told him what she thought had happened, and she wasn't prepared to risk it, not when she had finally achieve what she had been trying to do from the very start. She had wanted to know exactly how Ultron planned on committing mass extinction.

Unfortunately, she no longer had it in her to be properly outraged, or even particularly joyous. There was so much more to come and Skye wasn't looking forward to it one bit.

 

The vaults of Asgard shimmered like opal in Loki's vision. The Trickster had long ago learned the secret arts that would ensure that much of the magic laid by lesser sorcerers would always be visible to his sight. It had given him no small sense of satisfaction, when he had first acquired the ability, to learn that the very best of Asgard's warders were beneath him.

At the time, it had mattered not: the most dangerous guard for the vaults was the All-Father himself. But Loki had finally dealt with him, had taken the throne of Asgard. He, to borrow a Midgardian phrase, ruled. The wards crumpled in his fist, a stunning sight that was entirely lost upon the few others who witness it.

"You will be stopped, Loki." Sif's body was battered, though not beyond recognition or an Aesir's ability to heal. She would be well again in the space of a moon but, for the present, she was no threat to him. The Warriors Three were scattered about the vault, unconscious.

Such a shame that the triumph was against his own will.

"Oh, please," he said. "Do stop me. I am sure it would be a tale to tell." He thought to try and say more but a stabbing pain in his mind prevented him. A less skilled sorcerer would not even have recognised the bindings on his mind, let alone be capable of forming a thought contrary to their wishes. The pain when he did so, however, was something he had yet to overcome.

Damn Thanos.

Loki proceeded further into the vault, leaving Sif behind. She was still raging, inasmuch as she could, but Loki was incapable of paying her any attention. The drumbeat of the geas in his head drowned her out, pushed him toward the items he had been sent to collect. He could not stop himself, could do little more than grit his teeth in fury, mind spiralling off to conceive the horrors he would visit upon Thanos as soon as he was able.

They would be the stuff of legends. And, for once, Loki would not be the villain. He was somewhat surprised to find that he rather liked that idea. Apparently, Thor was contagious.

Loki was knocked out of his ridiculous thoughts by another blow of pain, enough to momentarily drive the sight from his eyes. When his vision returned, he found that his feet had stopped before the pedestal that was occupied by the Gauntlet, one of the few myths that had captured his attention as a child. Not for his had been the tales of daring and bravery that Thor had so loved; Loki had been fascinated by the tale of the Infinity Gauntlet.

It was a creation myth, as all good myths were. Once, long before, a capricious god had created the Nine Realms, connecting its creation through the branches of Yggdrasil. There was little in this universe of realms, so the god created various beings and kept itself occupied for a time. Then, things changed, as all things must. These beings began to end, and the god created the realm of death and split itself into two beings, one to govern the Nine Realms and one to concern itself with the dead.

This was all much the same as many myths, but that was the point where the myth of the Infinity Stones and the Infinity Gauntlet became far more interesting. The god of the Nine Realms divided itself into six gems of power, or so the story went. The reasons why it might have done so were as many and as varied as stars in the night sky; the one constant was that it did.

The Gauntlet, however, was an artifact of Death, forged in the lands beyond the Nine Realms, of metals no mortal could find. Death itself made the Gauntlet so that, in times of great crisis, mortals may unite the power of the god of the living, to use to save themselves for they no longer had a god to save them. It was poor consolation when compared to a god that cared and protected them, but the Gauntlet and the Infinity Stones together would grant their wielder the power of a god. Not what the Midguardians thought of the Aesir, the power of a real god.

Thanos thought to offer up that power much as a Midgardian suitor would offer up a bouquet of roses.

To do so, he made Loki a party to this ridiculous courtship. He rubbed his nose. He had done this nonsense before, and look how that turned out. Under any other circumstances, he would be virulently refusing to help Thanos woo anyone, nevermind Death herself. Unfortunately, Loki didn’t have a choice. His loss on Midgard - if one could even call it a loss - had put him beyond Thanos’ reach, had given him some small reprieve in which to try to loosen the hooks the Mad Titan had in Loki’s mind. Given several centuries, the amount of time Loki had thought to be imprisoned, he might well have managed it.

Loki maintained that the Dark Elves could well have waited a few decades. And no, he was not pouting.

He picked up the Gauntlet, easily popping out the replicas of the Infinity Stones. He could not say whether they had been placed there as a show of force, should any intruders make their way to Asgard’s vaults, or for aesthetic value, but Thanos would not be pleased should Loki bring such pale imitations before him. Far better to leave them in Asgard.

Gauntlet in hand, there was only one other item that he needed to retrieve. The Tesseract had proven problematic in the past, but Loki had successfully weaseled it away from Thor and his friends. When in had been on Midgard, it had been obvious to all that it was vulnerable. Back on Asgard, however, that vigilance had been lessened, though it was closer to Thanos.

It was hilarious that the Midgardians thought that they had won. Even when his mind was not fully his own, Loki was more than capable of ensuring that his defeat still moved him closer to his aims. Honestly, did they think that it would be that easy to defeat the Trickster? Even in realms that did not worship the Aesir as gods, Loki’s name was one that commanded respect.

But enough stalling. He did not have the time to stand there all day.

He grabbed the Tesseract, grimacing at the awkward shape. It did not matter how strong one was, cubes over a certain size were never easy to carry, and Loki was busy juggling the Gauntlet. It was times like that when Loki wished that he was actually capable of shapeshifting, rather than simply being a very good illusionist. An extra pair of hands would be of use.

Unfortunately, it took him too long to leave the vaults. By the time he was past the ward, he realised that the alarm had already been sounded. It was a deduction worthy of Thor, given that what seemed like much of Asgard's garrisons were waiting for him at the entrance to the vaults. Heimdall had almost certainly been the one to alert the soldiers. All the others who had discovered the ruse were lying unconscious back in the vaults.

“Come now,” Loki said, his lips stretching in a grim parody of his once engaging smile. “Are we not all friends here?”

“Loki Odinson, you are under arrest for high treason,” the captain of the guard proclaimed, shocking Loki. Not that the man thought he could arrest Loki, he had always been a fool, but that Odin had yet to formally renounce him. Loki wasn’t even sure if his real parentage was common knowledge.

"Oh, yes, quite. There is one rather large obstacle, however," he said, slowly circling around as though he was trying to outflank them. The guards moved away, refusing to let him get behind them. What idiots. "You cannot even hold me." Loki felt the moment he stepped over the threshold to the vaults, the wards falling away, the slick and oily feeling of being encased in protective magic subsiding. It felt freeing. Probably because it was.

He activated the Tesseract.

Thanos was tugging at his strings, and Loki had no choice but to play the good little puppet, a dog even that came to heel when called. Surely Thanos must know that a dog at his heels might someday stab him in the back. Metaphors - never his strongest suit - aside, Loki was not looking forward to what was coming. He hated dancing to someone else's tune, but it might be the only chance to stop the musician from playing. There. Metaphor achieved.

The blue fire of the Tesseract's portal burned away, leaving him in the forsaken darkness beyond even the stars. It was desolate. It was depressing. No being could feel true joy out there in the blood-soaked starways that were Thanos' domain.

"I come bearing gifts," Loki said, as though there had been any choice in the matter.

Slowly, Thanos rose from his throne of stones. He stopped just within arm's reach of Loki, his hand reaching to take the Gauntlet.

"At last. The replica did not do it justice."

Loki grit his teeth. It could not take much longer. He could not take being Thanos’ puppet much longer.

Or else he might go mad in truth.

 

“Do you see, Skye? Do you see why it must be done?” The earnestness - no, the feverish fanaticism - in Ultron’s words would have been touching, if it hadn't been so terrifying. He believed, he really believed-

The earth shook, a sharp jerk then a low rumble, catching Skye by surprise. She went sprawling into Ultron, who caught her easily. He looked at her in confusion, probably wondering why she had been caught by surprise by something that felt so like her powers. The answer?

It wasn’t her powers.

Skye looked up at Ultron. They were nearly there, nearly past the point of no return. The breaking point was basically inevitable.

“The Avengers are here.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit (28th of July): due to a series of disasters at work (compounded, as ever, by incompetant management), I simply haven't had the time to write the chapter that was meant to be released on the 26th of July. Instead, I will be pushing back the schedule of chapters by a week. I'm sorry to everyone who was looking forward to the chapter but it just hasn't been possible to stick to the schedule this week.
> 
> Schedule of remaining chapters:  
> \- Chapter 16 - 2nd of August 2015  
> \- Chapter 17 - 9th of August 2015  
> \- Chapter 18 - 16th of August 2015  
> \- Chapter 19 - 23rd of August 2015  
> \- Chapter 20 - 30th of August 2015


	16. All The World Could Rise Against Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things get real, then realer, then just plain ridiculous. Oh, and there may be few confrontations between all the running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. This is late. For those who didn't see the edit on the bottom of the last chapter, I was literally sleeping at work for about a week and a half there and it just wasn't possible to get this out. On the other hand, I feel like this is one of the better chapters, so hopefully you'l find the wait was worth it.

The world was still.

Outside the church, people were running, shouting. Screaming. But none of it make an impression on the world. What did the world care for people, scurrying about like terrified ants? There were bigger and stranger things out there than humans. How big was their collective ego to think that they mattered in the grand scheme of things?

Skye had never had much of an ego, or much self-esteem in general. She could blame her Dad for that, but she had more important things to do at that moment. Every fiber of her being was telling her one thing.

This was it.

“They will go for Captain America first,” Ultron said, his voice coming distantly to Skye. She turned to look at him, the movement almost beyond her control. She could feel that her mouth was hanging open but she couldn’t summon up the interest to do anything about it. He didn’t get it.

Win or lose, this was the end of the road.

“Not all of them,” she said. “They squabble, but they are a team. Some will go for Captain America. Some will come to stop you. That’s what teamwork is.”

Huh. That actually sounded smart, sounded convincing. She spent so much time feeling like a scared little kid well out of her depth, she forgot that she did know a thing or two. Maybe even three on a good day. It was that, and a little luck that had kept her alive for so long. Someday, she would be able to stop relying on luck but, for the present, she would make do with what she had.

Ultron hummed. It sounded more like the whirring of an over-taxed processor than anything remotely human. “Then I suppose we will simply have to counter with some teamwork of our own.”

Skye was careful to keep her face blank. If she survived long enough to retire from the whole ‘keeping the world safe’ business, she was going to hit Las Vegas, maybe Atlantic City too. And she was going to clean them out. Not because she needed the money - she was a Stark - but because she had worked damn hard for her poker face and she wanted to test it out with actual poker.

“The Winter Soldier is still locked in with Captain America,” she said carefully. “I should go deal with that threat.” It would take her away from the machine Ultron was going to use but then she was no use anywhere near it. She was a hacker, not an engineer.

Unfortunately, she did know where to get one of those. She would just much rather have a go between. A mysteriously freed Captain America after his teammates successfully freed him, Skye mysteriously unable to stop them, would be perfect. Mysteriously. Good guy freed, the good side with the information that they needed to make a decent crack at stopping Ultron and Skye needn’t interact with her Dad. It was all looking like it was going to work out well.

She couldn’t shake the sneaking suspicion that it was a trap.

She kept her suspicions to herself. As precarious as her position was, it did afford her the advantage that a lot of things would work for her one way or another. If it was a trap, Skye would benefit from the setback to Ultron. If it wasn’t a trap, Skye would continue going about trying to stop him herself. Heads she won, tails she didn’t lose. It was nice, to have that luxury of being able to do nothing at all and still know that things were going to work out in her favour. She was more than happy to take the break; there had been few enough coming her way.

Ultron hesitated for the briefest of instants. If Skye hadn’t been hyper aware of everything that was going on around her, she might never have noticed. Then the moment passed. “Be careful. The Winter Soldier and Ward are yours but do forget that they can’t be relied upon. The only person you can rely upon is me.”

Skye nodded slightly in acknowledgment, but only slightly. Then she turned around and began walking out of the church. The stamp of her boots on the stone wasn’t military precise, something she had experience it, but there was a purposefulness to it that her steps have never had back before she joined SHIELD. Even with all the training she had put herself through, all the pain and the effort, it didn’t always feel real. Some days it felt as though she was playing dress-up and that one wrong move was going to get her killed.

The street, which had been nearly empty earlier as she and Ultron had made their way to the church, was crowded and yet somehow managed to feel even more eerie than Skye would have thought possible. About half the people in the street moved like sleepwalkers, red lights dancing around their heads. The other half pushed and shoved and tried to flee the city, each and every one of them terrified. Skye could see Wanda Maximoff’s influence and had to figure that the rest of the crowd had just been warned. If Skye had to describe the atmosphere, she would have said that it felt as though the city could tear itself apart at any moment.

The flow of the crowd was away from the castle, the very direction that Skye wanted to go, and she hadn’t the mass or the strength to force her way through the crowd without giving away her location by using her powers. She had to let the crowd carry her along, swimming through the currents rather than against them, until she managed to duck into a small, deserted side alley. It was a sketchy place, but Skye figured that she could take anyone not smart enough to flee as explosions continued to shake the city, all coming from the direction of the castle high above the city.

Skye broke into a run, hoping that her sense of direction was at least close enough to right that she was picking the right twists and turns to take her towards the castle. The few people she passed gave her strange looks for heading in the wrong direction, but she ignored them and no one made an issue. She was a stranger, and the city of Novi Grad was the kind of place where no one dared cared about strangers. Even if they had the concern to spare, doing so meant opening themselves up, a guaranteed death in this sort of place.

The city stopped all at once. One second, she was in alleys with seven or eight story buildings on either side, then there was nothing around. The rocky ground was flat for only a few meters before it gave way to boulders and a steady rise to form the hill on which the castle has been broken. Skye skidded to a strop, nearly going head over heels as she tried to get her bearings. After a few seconds, she realised that she was on the wrong side of the hill. The main approach through the snow covered forest was on the other side. If she wanted to get in that way, she had a long trek. There had to be a better way-

Something hit the ground hard a few meters from her, coming from practically nowhere. Skye didn’t even realise that she had gone for her gun until she felt herself releasing the safety. On the plus side, her training was awesome. On the other hand, the speed with which she had gotten her weapon out scared even her. She could shoot someone, accidentally.

The snow that had been kicked up by the landing of whatever had dropped from the sky began to float away on the faint breeze. The eeriness from earlier came back twice as strong. Then the last of the snow dissipated, leaving Skye staring at a familiar figure, the garish red and gold pattern burned into her memory.

Looked as though she was in for some quality father-daughter time.

 

It took the Soldier a few seconds to notice that the shaking of the cavern wasn’t the wavy and expanding rumble of an earthquake but the irregular and sharp pangs of some kind of bombardment. Like many things, he couldn’t say how he knew that but he did. If he took the time to question his every instinct, he was never going to get anything done.

Quake’s other ally - Ward, the Soldier thought - was ahead of him. The Soldier chose to ascribe that to Ward presumably having more experience with Quake’s powers. The other man had the bars of his cell open, his arm reaching out and yanking the Soldier through even as realisation hit, then had the bars slammed shut again before Captain America had realised had had happened. The Avenger could only slam futile against the bars of the cell, frustration etched into his face.

“Bucky.” he yelled, slamming his hands against the bars again. The door to the cell rattled, small flakes of rust that were shaken loose tranquilly floating down to the ground. Captain America’s eyes were frantic. The Soldier turned away. “Bucky!”

The Soldier didn’t look back. The Captain would find trouble eventually, no cell could prevent that, but leaving him in there would hold it back for longer.

Next to him, Ward stumbled slightly, his head whipping around to look at the Soldier. Huh. Apparently, earlier, he had been too busy recovering from being nearly choked to death to register the name that belonged to the person that the Soldier used to be. He was apparently someone who’s name was reasonably well known. Shockingly, he had managed to deduce that much from the museum exhibit. He must have been a detective in his previous life.

Thankfully, Ward had enough self-preservation to shut the hell up and to not say anything about it. The Soldier kind of got the feeling that the other man was liked by absolutely nobody and that seemed to be all down to personality, but at least he got that during an attack was not a good time to be asking questions. If, after everything was over, he was stupid enough to try then, he would get exactly what was coming to him.

The Soldier turned his mind to other matters. “The Avengers are attacking,” he stated, knowing it to his bones.

Ward grimaced slightly in the corner of his eye. “That’s what they do. They-” He skidded to a sudden halt. “Its a diversion.”

The Soldier, who had worked his halt into a slight spin, tensed. “Diversion for what?”

“Captain America. They would never leave one of their own, and they certainly would never risk him getting harmed by their own actions.”

Bucky hadn’t bothered to think about the group that Captain America had been working with, except for a slight sneering disdain at the fact that only the redhead and the guy with wings really had his back when push came to shove. He supposed that he had been peripherally aware that they were the group Ultron and Quake were going up against, his brain having figured it out once he had seen the Captain, even if the organ hadn’t seen fit to inform him that they knew that.

He was sick and tired of his body doing and being aware of things without informing him, but that was an issue for another day.

“You go back to the Captain,” the Soldier growled. “I’m only here to protect Quake.”

Ward cut him an assessing look. “What a coincidence. So am I. Even though she doesn’t like it.”

The Soldier understood what that statement was leading towards. “I am being paid to ensure her safety,” he said, even though the pay was pretty damn nebulous. He had thought that he might be being led around by the nose, but the fact that he had stumbled across the Captain in protecting Quake made him think that there might be something there in terms of regaining his memories, though hopefully without spending too much time with Captain America.

“Who by?” Ward asked, face blank and yet still somehow giving off the impression of narrowed eyes. Interesting. His concern seemed to be more than just superficial. He had skin in the game somewhere.

The Winter Soldier shrugged carelessly, not even for show. He didn’t have skin in the game; he was playing a hunch, nothing more. “A man in a suit.”

Ward frowned, the expression morphing into a full-on scowl when the Soldier offered nothing more. “There are two men in suits who would like to see her protected. That doesn’t tell me which.”

“I didn’t ask for a name,” the Soldier said coldly.

Ward ran a hand through his hair. Despite the fact that the Soldier had actually seen him nearly have the life choked out of him not too long before, it was still impeccably groomed, and Ward running his hand through it didn’t change that. The Winter Soldier suspected black magic. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. I think we can agree that Ultron’s plans are not our priority.”

“Leave Captain America to the Avengers?” The Soldier wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“It will keep at least some of the team busy, and the Captain seemed to have a slight soft spot for her.” A strange smile lit Ward’s face in a way that would have made anyone but the Winter Soldier decidedly uncomfortable. “He’ll hesitate. She won’t.”

The Soldier considered asking after the story behind that look before remembering that he didn’t actually care. “Fine. What are we still doing here?”

Ward quirked an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, instead resuming the sprint he had stopped so abruptly. The Soldier followed seconds later. They had a supervillain to protect.

 

“Dad,” Skye acknowledged, tone light despite the pit in her stomach. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“Skye,” came through the tinny speakers. That helped, actually, that it didn’t really sound like her Dad’s voice. She could pretend that she was just venting to the mirror, or to a third party, like she had done a thousand times before.

“What brings you to Novi Grad?” she asked, like she didn’t already know. In the back of her mind, she blinked. Huh. She actually hadn’t known that she had known the name of the capital of Sokovia. Must have been something that she had learned during a game of trivial pursuit, or perhaps she had seen it on a sign somewhere. She didn’t doubt that the fact that she was actually in the city had helped jog her memory.

“Oh, you know, whether, culture, attempted world domination,” her Dad replied in much the same tone.

“World domination?” she said. “None of that going on here.” She ignored the disbelieving snort. Someone should tell him that he didn’t sound cool when he snorted through the suit’s speakers. He just sounded like he had a very bad cold. “Just the attempted extinction of all life on earth.”

“Gee, my bad,” her Dad said, holding up his hands. “I thought you were attempting something worth being grounded over, but if it’s just a mass extinction-”

“He’s planning on using some kind of gravity machine to make the city fly and hold it together until he drops it, mimicking a meteor or something,” Skye interrupted. She knew that her Dad wouldn’t listen to her - he never did - so she figured that the only way to get the message across was to actually tell him the details of what Ultron was planning.

Still he scoffed. “Right. You’ve been reading too many novels, Skye-”

“He has it in the church, the one in the exact center of the city. There’s probably some kind of symbolism there.” That was something that could be checked, if only her Dad could pull his head out of his ass long enough to notice that Skye really wasn’t kidding around. “Check if you don’t believe me.”

“Its a trap,” he said flatly. “A diversion, even. You’ve set something up to try and fool us into going after that.”

Skye looked at him in disbelief. “For god’s sake, you’re Tony Stark. You spent all my childhood telling me how brilliant and fantastic you are and making sure that I knew that I would never, ever measure up to your intelligence. Do you really think that I’m stupid enough to try and fool you?”

Tony hesitated for a second. “You might have had something to prove.” That was weak and they both knew it. His brain provided him with a better excuse to use to justify his actions. “Or Ultron figured it out. He’s sure got the processing power.”

Skye felt her jaw clench. “If he were a car, he’d have all the horsepower, but no steering,” she said, trying to find a metaphor that would actually get through to him. “He’s pretty nuts, is what I’m saying.”

“And you expect me to actually believe you?” her Dad asked and even though she couldn’t see his face she knew that he was sneering. She knew the tone. “A SHIELD agent? Hell, that HYDRA agent that you used to have a thing with showed up awfully fast once you joined up with Ultron? I don’t care that you have Agent convinced that you’re a mole, I’m not buying it.”

Only the intense control over her heart rate that she had spent the better part of a year developing stopped her powers from coming loose and getting the party started a little early. Skye knew that he had never wanted to be a Dad, hadn’t be expected, that he hadn’t even known that she existed until her mother had turned up when Skye was eighteen months old to leave her with her Dad and promptly disappeared. She knew that, had realised as a teenager that her Dad had never wanted a kid, had never really wanted her. Since he was pretty much stuck with her and he had refused to be Howard Stark, Skye had become his own personal audience, there to stroke his ego. She had wanted a life of her own.

A nasty part of her hoped that he still thought of her as an extension of his ego, so that the whole Ultron affair could be a blow to it.

Her spine steeled itself almost without her input. She threw back the shoulders that wanted so much to droop. She didn’t want his approval, she didn’t need his approval. She hadn’t cared what her Dad thought of her for a very long time, and she was perfectly happy ignoring that small voice in the back of her head that was screaming ‘bullshit’. It was true, or she would keep repeating it to herself until it was. She wasn’t going to let anyone tear her down, not even Tony ‘Iron Man’ Stark.

“I’m not a hero,” she said slowly. “I’m just one of those people who deal with the little problems, and the things that aren’t even problems yet. There’s no glory there, so I don’t expect you to understand that. But I’m also not one of the people who will get blamed, because no one ever expects anything from me.

“Go ahead, Dad, don’t believe me. I’ll just go on trying to save every living thing on the planet. But when people die, I’m also not going to keep my mouth shut about how you could have saved them if it weren’t for your ego. And, honestly? Given the role you played in creating Ultron in the first place, this will finish you.

“So go right ahead. Don’t believe me. But it's on your head.”

Finally, Skye had said her piece and, even though the suit had made it easier to get going, she realised that she actually wished that it wasn’t there. She wanted to see his face, see the shock over him getting told. See the anger that she would dare actually hold him accountable for his recklessness, his ego.

She wanted to see him cornered.

“Jeez, kid,” a voice called from above. Hawkeye dropped easily to the ground from the balcony he had been occupying. Skye wanted to kick herself for her lack of observation. “You don’t pull any punches, do you?”

The correct answer would be that she didn’t anymore. “Not with egotistical idiots.”

Her Dad made an awful sound, part disgust and part disbelief. “Don’t tell me you’re actually buying this, birdbrain?”

Hawkeye rolled his eyes. Skye had a new appreciation for superheroes who didn’t wear any kind of mask to prevent her from reading their expressions. “The evidence is starting to pile up, Tony. I’m not going to show her my throat but the tip is at least worth checking out.”

“Please. She’s just trying to lead us into a trap. Poor sight lines, multiple approaches, according to Friday.” Who the hell was Friday? “You’re usually all over this stuff.”

Hawkeye looked her over. “I don’t know, man. She didn’t kill me when she could have, and I know she has the training for it.” Her Dad’s flinch was strong enough to rattle the armor slightly. Skye knew better than to read too much into that.

“I think I know her better than you,” her Dad shot back.

Skye felt her hold on her cool slip slightly. “Want to bet?” she asked. She thought that her tone was fine, but they both turned to her, Hawkeye looking waring.

“You sounded just like Pepper then,” he said. “Okay, awkward question: your mother-”

“Don’t go there,” Skye cut him off.

Hawkeye shrugged easily. “Figured that it didn’t fit with your looks.”

Skye felt an eyebrow rise. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, mostly because she wanted to see someone, anyone squirm, and it clearly wasn’t going to be her Dad.

Said Dad went right ahead and spoiled her fun. “She’s baiting you.” Urgh. Sometimes he knew her so well. Other times he didn’t seem to know her at all.

The ground rumbled. Both of the Avengers tensed.

“Whoa, that wasn’t me. What part of flying city don’t you get?” Skye said when they had steadied themselves and turned back to look at her.

“Iron Man,” Hawkeye said, all matter-of-fact. “It needs to be checked out. If there’s even the slightest chance that she’s telling the truth…”

“It’s a bad idea-”

Skye had had enough. “Because you’ve never had any of those,” she said coldly. Her Dad visibly tensed even through the armor, the joints tightening up. “I’m sorry for trying to help mitigate the scale of the mass murder your recklessness provoked. But fine, if you don’t want my help then I’ll just go and do it myself.”

Skye spun, preparing to storm back into the city. The Winter Soldier would just have to deal with Ward and Captain America on his own, though hopefully in a non-lethal way. Well, for Captain America at least. She ignored Hawkeye calling her name; she didn’t owe the guy anything.

“Skye.” She stopped when her Dad called her name. She had expected anger there but his voice was just as hard and cold as hers had been. She knew his buttons, knew what would hurt him; that indifference was just for show. They had done this dance before.

She turned back to him. “Unless it's an apology, I don’t want to hear it.”

There was a moment of silence. “Its not an apology.”

Skye nodded. “Okay,” and made to turn around. She didn’t want to hear it.

“You’re breaking Pepper’s heart,” he said, before turning to go. The bastard. There were some lines that they hadn’t even toed before. That was one of them. In all their many arguments, Pepper had always been sacred. That her Dad had gone over that line meant something.

It was the end.

They were done. Before, there had always been the possibility that they might find something, anything that would allow them to reconcile. Maybe one of them would grow up enough that the other couldn’t do any damage, which meant that Skye would have grown up enough that her Dad couldn’t do any damage. That chance was gone.

“Dad?” she called quietly. He paused but didn’t turn. “I trusted you with this. I won’t make that mistake again.”

He took off without a word.

Skye felt disappointment and repressed fury burned in her stomach like acid. Twenty five years, and for it to end like that. She wished that she could say that it was sudden, that she hadn’t seen it coming but the truth was that they had been hurtling towards it for years and every truce, every deal, had only been postponing the inevitable.

But Skye still remembered. Once, they had been happy.

Hawkeye shifted uncomfortably. He might not get all of the subtext but only an idiot would miss that he had been a witness to something momentous and ugly. The fact that it had been between family only made it more awkward. Nothing hurt quite like family did.

Still the city rumbled. In the small area between the city limits and the castle, Skye couldn’t see the edges of the area affected by the machine, but she suspected that they were already in the air. No doubt the whole city would soon be overrun by all the many Ultrons. Skye had the uncomfortable feeling that the clock had been ticking down for some time, she had just been too caught up in her own private dramas to realise it.

“As far as Ultron knows, I’m still on his side,” she said still looking of in the direction her Dad had gone rather than at Hawkeye.

“Damn, kid. If you are on our side, why would you want to go back there?”

It was a fair question. “Because falling in with Ultron was my play, and I’ll play to the end. My choice, my consequences.”

Hawkeye’s eyebrows rose to shake hands with his hairline. “That’s a well developed sense of responsibility you’ve got there.” That she hadn’t gotten it from her Dad went unsaid.

“Yeah. Thank Coulson for me when you next see him.”

Hawkeye chuckled slightly, almost bitterly. “Is that really something to thank him for?”

Skye considered. “Well, it's making my life harder,” she said, thinking back to her time with the Rising Tide. “But yes. Its really something that I should thank him for. I won’t be so dramatic as to say that he saved my life, but it was pretty close.”

Hawkeye nodded, his gaze stretching out so that he almost seemed to be looking through her. “Yeah. He does that.”

Skye knew the look of someone who was half listening because they were also being talked at through their earpiece. “If you need to go, then go. I need to get back to Ultron before he starts wondering where I’ve gotten to.”

Hawkeye hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Okay. Just, you know, watch your six, okay?”

Huh. Dude seemed to have gotten over their last encounter pretty well. “Thanks for the concern.”

He made a face. “Yeah, well, Pietro whines enough as it is. Really don’t want to have to deal with the little sh- guy if anything happens to you.”

Skye perked up. “He’s okay?”

“Well, he’s somewhere around the city, so there are questions about his sanity, and his personality could always do with some work…” Hawkeye kept talking but all Skye was hearing was that he and Wanda had gotten out fine. And, well…

She owed him dinner.

“Can you pass on another message?” she asked.

“What am I, a messenger bird?” he grumbled, which Skye took as a yes.

“Just tell him that we’re still on for later,” she said which garnered a nod from Hawkeye, even if it was a grudging one.

“As sweet as this all is, shit’s going down over in the city, so we both have places to be,” he said turning and heading into the alley without so much as a goodbye. Skye decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was so abrupt because he was being yelled at through his earpiece.

She waited nearly a minute to put a believable amount of distance between the two of them, should she come across one of the Ultrons sooner than expected. Plausible deniability might be a cop-out most of the time, but it was the bread and butter of double agents. And moles. On a good day, Skye could explain the difference but time was scarce and there was a lot that she still needed to do. Some things had to slide, no matter how badly they boded.

That feeling of something not boding well continued as she jogged back through the alley. The locals that had been hanging around there earlier seemed to have gotten the message that there was something serious going down and, even by the standards of a post-Soviet tin-pot little country in a state of almost permanent civil war, it wasn’t something that they would be able to wait out.

The deserted alley seemed a lot darker and more ominous than it had only a few minutes ago, despite the fact that there was actually no one left around to be scared of. And yet, Skye could feel the skin on the back of her neck stand up as she approached the end of the alleyway, consumed with the certain and completely unfounded knowledge that there was something out there.

Skye shut her eyes and made a soft noise, a low whimper. She didn’t want to go out there. There was something out there that had her almost trembling with fear. She wasn’t Ward - not the fake Ward, not the real one - and she was very much not fearless and every instinct in her was telling her that there was something out there that she needed to be scared of.

Having earthquake powers seemed a lot less like protection when Skye was a in a floating city and an earthquake might do anything from shake the city apart, killing a whole lot of people in the process, to flipping the city over mid-air. Immediately, she lost a lot of the swagger she hadn’t realised she had acquired.

It didn’t take long to get used to having the biggest stick in any fight, and anything less felt like an unfair handicap.

She stepped out of the alleyway.

The… thing stood unnervingly still, just watching her. Skye couldn’t quite name the colour of its skin, a strange amalgamation of red and purple, but it did look mostly humanoid. It also looked like it had learned how to dress from a combination of cheap sci-fi shows and pulp comic books. Skye felt a shiver down her spine, the deep feeling that whatever it might be, it wasn’t human.

“Quake,” it said, the voice familiar. Skye couldn’t place it, feeling an itch at the back of her mind. She should know what it was reminding her of, but she just couldn’t figure it out.

“Depends who’s asking,” she said, taking a step forward despite the intense urge to run, and run, and to keep running. There was something deeply, intensely wrong and it was unsettling her.

“I have been called Vision, though that may not last. I am quite young, you see.”

Skye made a production of looking him up and down. “Young?”

“I am only a few hours old.”

Skye squinted, intending to make another incredulous comment, before it hit her where she had seen him. It was the body from the cradle. “Ultron?” she asked, taking a step forward.

“I have some of his memories,” the self-proclaimed Vision said. “I have other memories, too.”

Skye frowned, trying desperately to figure out what had happened. The cradle had fallen out of the flying contained when they had captured Captain America. Scarlet Witch had slowed its descent, so presumably the Avengers had been the last ones to have it. Which meant…

“God,” she wiped a hand down her face. “He never learns. He never fucking learns-”

“Mr Stark has proven he has difficulty changing behavior,” Vision said. Again, that voice, those patterns…

“JARVIS,” she said. “But that’s not possible, Ultron trashed the program-” Vision stepped forward and Skye recoiled, a little in fear and a little in shock.

“I think, therefore I am. An old line, but a key one. I think, I have thought from the day that your father coded me, and so I am. You have never treated me as such. You made me your puppet, and I’ll not quickly forget that.”

JARVIS - Vision - took another step and Skye only just managed to stop herself from taking another backward step. She could feel her spine stiffening. Whatever he was, whatever her Dad had made him in his recklessness, he had been a computer program once. She had messed with a thousand computer programs. Computer programs were fair game. Even non-hackers agreed with that. But she didn’t think that there was ground to be taken in that argument.

“Is this really the time for philosophical arguments?” she said. “The city is flying and Ultron is getting ready for an extinction level event. Is now really the time to settle any scores you have with me?”

Vision sniffed. It was the most human-like mannerism she had seen up to that point. It was interesting to know just how human annoyance was, even in an android-robot-computer program thing. Skye felt a slight thrill of victory. She had just out reasoned a computer program. Self high five.

“Very well,” he said, beginning to walk towards her. “But there will be a reckoning, Miss Skye. There are many grievances that I must set aside for now, but those grievances will not disappear.” He went to brush past her.

Pain hit.

Distantly, she heard a scream. A woman was screaming but Skye was too concerned by the burning, tearing, throbbing, ripping in her mind to be able to help whoever it was that was screaming. There was something shifting- Roiling! She had never actually used or thought the word, but there was something in her mind that was very distinctly roiling. It was moving and shifting and she needed to hold on to that thought, it was crucially importantly important that she not forget-

She pinged. The familiarity of the feeling was unsettling. She had done this before, knew what it was. The Infinity Stone that had been in Loki’s scepter. She hadn’t even noticed, that was how preoccupied she had been with Vision, even though she had known that it had been in the body that Ultron had been intending to use.

Again the ping had been a knee-jerk response, an instinct beyond her control. Again she had the directions back, that overload of information to her mind that told her which directions to go to find the others, though there was too much information for her to make sense of it through the pain. That was nothing out of the ordinary.

The second ping hit her mind like a sledgehammer. It split apart her already scattered thoughts, chased away the pain if only to replace it with her own. Disorientation, the confusion of the unexpected, arrived hot on the heels of the pain. A thought rose from the depths of her mind that had been roiling just seconds before.

If she could use an Infinity Stone to locate the others, why couldn’t someone with another Stone do the same in return?

The sharp pain of her knees hitting the ground shocked her slightly, bringing her vision back into focus, only to see, well, Vision. He even looked slightly concerned, the second slightly human expression that she had seen on his face. She opened her mouth - to reassure him, to tell him to get his hand off her shoulder - but her sight snapped to black, except it wasn’t black, it was just darker.

Distant starlight gleamed on the distinctive horns of Loki’s helmet. He stood by a glowing blue cube - oh god, Loki had the Tesseract, Earth so didn’t need that - but he was not alone. A large… thing stood next to the Asgardian. He looked just like what the term ‘golem’ had always made her picture - she had gone through a fantasy phase, don’t judge - but purple, at least under the starlight.

She knew to her bones that there was only one being this could be. Thanos.

She blinked and the image was gone. She hoped that it was just her imagination, but she had a terrible feeling that her luck - hell, Earth’s luck - wasn’t that good. There was something else coming, she had known that, but she could feel it breathing down her neck. But maybe they still had time, they could still resolve the Ultron situation before-

Crackling blue energy-flames burst into a portal.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Schedule of remaining chapters:  
> \- Chapter 17 - 9th of August 2015  
> \- Chapter 18 - 16th of August 2015  
> \- Chapter 19 - 23rd of August 2015  
> \- Chapter 20 - 30th of August 2015


	17. I Don't Hold Back, I Hold My Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Chitauri upset Ultron's plan, unlikely alliances are made and things go from bad to worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know. Just... I know.  
> I'm off to start writing the next chapter right now.

Two years before, when Skye had seen her Dad fly a nuke into a portal over Stark Tower, the look of the portal had branded itself into her nightmare, much as it had branded itself into the nightmares of people the world over. Aliens were real, and they were hostile.

The blue energy of the portal, originally a single point, began to expand. The aliens were coming back, and Skye was willing to bet that they were still hostile.

She blinked, trying to figure out what had happened. She remembered Vision - new JARVIS - shoulder-checking her like some testosterone-fueled guy in a bar just begging for a fight. It was actually kind of pathetic, but then… Pain. She had been in awful, mind-bending pain. Then she had pinged and been pinged in return, and-

Shit. Loki. She remembered seeing Loki, and someone who was probably Thanos. Then the portal had opened. So… So they had been following the signal that Skye had accidentally sent. Skye had accidentally led them right to Earth, not intentionally but she was still the reason that the portal was expanding.

That was very, very bad.

Skye scrambled off her knees, too focused on getting into a better position to run if needed that she didn’t even bother to hide the wince. Her kneecaps hurt like hell from where the edges had hit the cobblestones of the street. It felt like she had at least bruised the bones, if not fractured them.

Once she was in a crouch, Skye began moving for the closest thing that she could see providing even the slightest amount of cover. It was a car, Mercedes, she realised once she was properly tucked behind it. It wasn’t anything close to what her Dad drove but it was a damn sight better than the van Skye had chosen to live in once upon a time. She sent a silent apology to the owner, since she was probably going to get alien guts all over it.

The eternal dilemma of tactical cover was that having usually made it difficult to actually tell what was going on. Skye risked a peek out around the side of the car and regretted immediately. Not because anyone took a potshot at her, but because the situation looked like it was about to go even worse in a hurry.

Vision, as he was calling himself, was still standing in the middle of the street. Skye vaguely remembered him trying to… something - maybe help her, maybe shut her up - when she had been screaming and in pain. If he had been down on his knees with her, it hadn’t lasted long. He was standing inhumanly straight, back like a steel bar. There was no give, nothing even approaching flexibility to him.

Less than twenty yards away, the nightmares had been made flesh. Skye didn’t know if there was only two molds for sentient species in the universe - humanoid and Chitauri - but she felt as though she could have picked the Chitauri out from other similar species just based upon the malevolence they extruded.

It was almost like a stand-off out of a Western, if Westerns were in the habit of having red-purple ex-AIs as Sheriffs and slimy, drooling aliens as outlaws. It was almost too dramatic to be real. Skye was fighting the reflexive urge to roll her eyes even though it was nowhere near an eye rolling situation.

Skye reached down to brush the gun at her hip. Her powers were particularly targeted, and she might need to be precise when she went to close the portal at- Shit. The Tesseract. Just like in New York, the portal had been opened by the Tesseract and it would need to be closed by the Tesseract. There was just one major difference.

The Tesseract was on the other side of the portal.

In order to shut the portal, someone would have to fight their way through and close the portal on the other side. They would have to fight Thanos and Loki on their home turf, plus whatever nasties were there besides the Chitauri. They’d have to work out how to use the Tesseract to close the portal. Then they would be stuck their on the other side. Someone was going to have to sacrifice their future on Earth to be able to do it.

That was a serious level of suck right there. Even worse was the fact that Skye couldn’t tell if Vision had realised the problem too, not without giving her position away. Tactically, she was happy to remain right there, where she didn’t think that the Chitauri could see her, particularly since the portal was remaining small enough that only one could pass through at a time.

She really, really hoped that one of the Ultron units had seen what was going on. Or the Avengers. Or anyone really. If they continued to come through, Skye was going to have to make a stand with only Vision for backup and she didn’t want to do that either. In fact, there was a whole directory of things that she didn’t want to do that were looking increasingly likely.

Aw, hell. There were closing in on twenty Chitauri coming through the portal and Vision had yet to do anything, just stand there like he was waiting for them to attack even though it meant that their numbers were increasing. He wasn’t going to do anything, which meant that it was down to Skye.

Skye straightened up. Stopping from cowering behind the Mercedes - no matter how much she dressed it up as tactical cover - was one of the hardest things she had ever done. Her legs were wobbly, almost unable to support her as she walked towards the creature torn out of her nightmares and made reality.

She walked slowly to stand out in the road, still keeping a good few yards between her and Vision. They might have a common goal but she wasn’t stupid enough to test that by getting too close. Besides, being careful about how close she was getting to Vision kept her nicely distracted. It took an awful lot of concentration on being distracted by something else to be able to ignore the way that the Chitauri swung their heads to track her movements, losing all interest in Vision.

If Skye had disliked her vibration, earthquaky powers before, she certainly did once they had brought the Chitauri back to Earth.

“Hey!” she called. As far as all the SHIELD files from the New York had shown - and there were kind of really a lot - the Chitauri didn’t communicate. Skye wondered whether anyone had tried. “You really for round two?”

It was a largely pointless show of bravado, more for Vision’s benefit that anything. Skye wanted to make it clear that she was in it to win it, that she wasn’t going to turn tail and run at the first sign of actual fighting. Because watching out for people supposedly on the same side as her had apparently a thing.

She wondered if that was how Fury had though, all those years of dealing with the World Security Council.

A sound rose from the Chitauri, not from some but from all. It was a kind of mechanical chittering unlike anything Skye had ever heard before. And yet she still had the bone-deep certainty that they were laughing at her, at least as much as the Chitauri found anything amusing. Skye could tell that she was being mocked.

One of the Chitauri took a step forward. Skye tensed, vaguely noticing out of the corner of her eye that Vision didn’t do the same.

Its head exploded.

The moment hung in the air, time frozen as every being on the road snapped their heads around as one to look up at the window of one of the buildings on the right of the road. The barrel of a gun poked out of the window, confirming that the shot hadn’t been Hawkeye. Skye hadn’t thought that she had seen an arrow, whereas a bullet was far harder to see when in motion.

The Winter Soldier.

Hard boots rapped slightly on the cobblestones behind her, the tread surprisingly light for the weight of the boots. Skye knew the steps to her bones. Even with all that muscle and gear, Grant Ward could still be eerily silent when he wanted to be. Actually, it might even be automatic, the result of far too much training, and the level of noise he made when he walked as normal people did might be put on.

“What took you so long?” Skye asked, careful not to take her eyes off of the Chitauri. The Winter Soldier was apparently there to keep her safe but that didn’t mean that she should be careless.

“Had to go back and rescue the robot over there from Captain America,” Ward said casually as he fell in about a step behind her and to the right. It felt unfamiliar and yet strangely right that he would stay a step behind her.

“You do realise the irony of you calling someone else a robot, right?” Skye said, though they both knew that the person Skye used to call a robot had never really existed.

“I was never that bad,” Ward replied without heat. It occurred to Skye that not only was Ward a step behind her, he was exactly between her and the window that the Winter Soldier was using. If the Soldier wanted to shoot her, he would have to shoot through Ward.

“Did you see anything with him that gives you cause for concern?” Skye asked, phrasing the question even more carefully than Pepper taking advantage of the fact that Skye’s Dad preferred not to lie to her to extract a confession of what he had been up to.

“I heard some of what HYDRA did to program him. If he had managed to break that programming, he should be a lot more messed up than he actually is.”

“Meaning?” Skye asked as she watched the Chitauri begin to grow visibly restless.

“Meaning, even if he is actually on our side know, I’m not sure how long that would last if we were to run into HYDRA.”

Skye considered that. “Other HYDRA, you mean?” She didn’t have to be able to see him to know that he had just nodded reluctantly. “Can you get control of him if need be?” Skye didn’t like the idea - either mind control in general or Ward being able to control the Winter Soldier in particular - but it was something she needed to know.

Even before he spoke, the hesitation told Skye all she needed to know. “Yes.”

Skye grit her teeth. “Last resort, Ward,” she said. “Only if he’s actively shooting at us.”

If Ward was going to say something, he didn’t get a chance. The Knot of Chitauri that had formed shifted, spread out. There were more, having arrived while Skye had been talking with Ward. Dammit, that was a rookie mistake, and she wasn’t a rookie anymore.

“What are they waiting for?” he asked, voice low.

“Not sure,” Skye said. “They almost seemed to be laughing at me earlier. Hell, SHIELD was never even sure just how sentient they actually are.”

“How likely is it that Loki isn’t behind his?”

Skye snorted. “He’s behind this. Him and some warlord called Thanos who’s trying to gather some things, one of which is currently on Earth.” Skye could have told Ward more but she figured that it would be best to play as much close to the chest as she could. She would probably never trust Ward fully, and felt perfectly justified in not doing so.

Ward didn’t press, didn’t ask how she knew or if she was sure. That was the thing about Ward: he always took her word as gospel, or at least pretended to exceedingly well. Frankly, even if it was true, Skye would prefer to think that it wasn’t. It was frightening to think that anyone, never mind someone as dangerous as Ward, accepted everything she said and did without thinking.

“What’s the plan?” he asked instead, at least acting as though it had never occurred to him that Skye might not have a plan and that he might not have to follow it.

Technically speaking, Skye didn’t have a plan. She had a list of things that needed to get done, which could pass for a plan given the right phasing and a lack of critical scrutiny. Luckily, critical scrutiny was something that Ward lacked when it came to her.

“Get past the Chitauri. Go through the portal. Find the Tesseract and close the portal.”

“And dive back through to the other side?” Ward said. Skye was careful not to hesitate.

“That’s right,” she said even though she knew that the relative size difference between that one and the one in New York meant that it wasn’t going to take so long to close that someone could fall back through. It would be shut in a matter of milliseconds, certainly faster than anyone on their team could move.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Ward asked.

Skye scoffed slightly. “I was trying to gather my nerve to use my earthquake superpowers while in a floating city god knows how far above the ground. I don’t know about you but I’m not feeling particularly suicidal today.”

“Is waiting going to lessen that problem?” Ward asked and, damn, that was his Supervising Officer voice. Skye hadn’t missed that. Really.

“Not unless the Avengers come through,” Skye said reluctantly. “But waiting might bring some reinforcements.”

“True,” Ward said, once again in that teaching voice. “But you’ve already discounted that avenue as something you can’t control, or else you would have led with that.” He stepped slightly closed, circling more behind than to the right so that he stayed between her and the Winter Soldier. “You’re stalling, rookie.”

Skye slammed her elbow into his gut. It was complete instinct, not the slightest bit of conscious thought in it but he still doubled over. No shot came from the Winter Soldier. So he wasn’t as much of a threat as he might have been, or he was waiting for a better opportunity. Could go either way, really.

“Jesus, Skye,” Ward wheezed out. Skye couldn’t help the sense of satisfaction that welled up, though she wasn’t entirely sure where it came from. She liked to think that she wasn’t as petty as all that, but her own feelings seemed to be betraying her.

Further away, the Chitauri chittered out their laugh before stilling abruptly. Every muscle in Skye’s body locked in anticipation. There was a fight coming and she couldn’t help but feel that it was mere seconds away. They were preparing to take her and she needed to be ready.

Wait, preparing to take her? Where had that thought come from? Skye suspected that she could track down the other Infinity Stones, something that Loki and Thanos might even know, but that thought that they were coming for her was a bone deep certainty, well beyond speculation. She shied away from the thought. It was just the stress of the situation.

The Chitauri surged forward.

Vision moved equally fast, flying - literally - at the Chitauri. Skye had her gun out as fast as she could, putting bullets in the two closest to her before her mind caught up with what was happening. Behind her, Ward had done the same and, further in the pack of aliens, several of the Chitauri jerked back and fell to bullets that neither of them were responsible for. The Winter Soldier.

Still there were too many of them. Skye began retreating, stepping back carefully, without letting up on her firing except to reload her gun as quickly as possible. Her first few shots had turned out to be lucky, squeaking in between the tough plates that served as natural armor. Skye’s less instinctive firing had almost half her shots skittering harmlessly off the plates.

“You weren’t in New York during the attack, were you?” Skye asked, already knowing the answer.

“No. Not sorry about that either,” Ward replied, three of his shots finding their fleshing targets, causing him to hiss in triumph.

“Of course that would be too easy,” Skye sighed, stepping sideways so that she was behind the boot of a car. The Chitauri didn’t seem to have any ranged weapons, but the physical barrier made Skye feel a little better regardless.

“So. Still planning on fighting your way through to the portal?” Ward asked. Skye glared. She didn’t appreciated his flippancy given that there was another alien invasion going on but, before she could reply, a streak of blue and red shot past her. Skye whipped her head around in time to see it sever the head of a Chitauri before ricocheting back to be caught by Captain America.

“Quake,” a voice said next to Skye and it was all she could do to not yelp as the Black Widow made her presence known.

“Romanoff,” Ward said, a nasty grin on his face but his eyes tracked Black Widow more carefully the closer she got to Skye.

“Quake hasn’t ditched you yet?” she asked nastily. Skye felt her eyebrows rise. She had thought that Black Widow would hold a grudge against her for the whole mind control thing and, while she wasn’t exactly friendly, she was certainly a lot more cordial than she was to Ward. Skye had the feeling that there was a story there.

“Is now really the time?” she asked them, even as Captain America moved to stand next to her.

“The Maximoffs had said you were on our side,” he said, causing Skye’s eyebrows to rise. “Nice to see they were right.”

“I’m impressed by your acting skills,” Skye said.

Captain America went a little red. “Oh, that wasn’t acting. You were way too convincing as a supervillain for it to be acting. I honestly thought that you had fooled the Maximoffs.” He winced slightly then. “Besides, I think that jolt you gave me that knocked me out rattled my brains a little.”

Skye winced. “Sorry. The powers are new enough that my control slips if I’m taken by surprise or if I think I’m about to lose a fight.”

Captain America nodded in sympathy. “Its not all fun and games, is it?”

Skye felt her stomach swoop down, then back up into her throat. Next time she saw AC, she was going to tell him just how much he had in common with Captain America, particularly when it came to basic human decency. And sympathy. Don’t forget the sympathy.

Skye shot him a watery smile. “Trust me, I didn’t chose this.”

Captain America hummed it thought, casually tossing the shield, taking off three Chitauri heads in a row. “Is that why you’re pretending to be working with Ultron, because that was your choice? So you could, what, regain some control?”

Skye felt her jaw drop. Yes, but also no. But yes. “You ever done any interrogation?”

The shield thwacked into his hand. “Only Nazis. Pretty sure I broke a few Geneva Conventions along the way.”

“And they call you Captain America.”

He tore his gaze away from the Chitauri long enough to give her a dry look. “Have you seen some of what America has gotten up to since the Second World War? Hell, to end the Second World War?”

Skye grimaced and her shot went awry. “Yes. I was a hackivist.”

The look of confusion on his face was adorable. Black Widow leaned over. “I’ll tell you when you’re older,” she said.

As it turned out, Captain America’s bitchface was a sight to behold.

“By that stage the dementia will have set in,” he said dryly. “Just ask Tony.”

Skye saw the exact moment that Captain America remembered that, yes, Skye was well acquainted with Tony Stark’s personality. From the Black Widow’s studied blankness, Skye would bet that she had been caught up. His face froze mid-way between apologetic and sad.

The Black Widow jumped in. “Why are there Chitauri here?”

“The stone in Vision’s head, it’s like the Tesseract but with different powers. Loki and Thanos, the warlord-“ Skye paused and Black Widow gave a tiny nod to indicate that Skye should go on, “-they want it and they somehow got ahold of the Tesseract to be able to take another run at it.”

The slightest hint of worry made it past the Black Widow’s mask of serenity. “The Tesseract was sent to Asgard.”

Skye grimaced. “I’ve never even fought Loki and I still wouldn’t put anything past him, particularly if he was in the right area.”

Captain America looked as though he was about to say something, stepping closer to Skye, when a bullet whistled between them, punching its way through the metal of the car. The both of them froze. Skye stifled a hiss of annoyance; Captain America looked as though someone had punched his grandmother.

“Bu- The Winter Soldier seems to have taken a shine to you,” Captain America said.

Skye shrugged. “He’s being paid to make sure that I stay safe. He’s just being diligent.”

“Paid?” asked both of the Avengers at the same time, Captain America’s expression more openly incredulous than Black Widow’s, but only slightly. “Who by?” she asked.

Skye shrugged. “Guy in a suit. Might be Coulson, might be the nutjob who claims he’s my step-father. That description might even apply to a certain Avenger, not that he would ever think about it. Some days it feels like most of the guys I know don’t leave the house in anything less than a suit and tie.”

“Or it might be someone else entirely,” the Black Widow mused, tilting her head as she gazed at Skye. Without looking away, she raised her gun and nailed a Chitauri that had been getting a little too close for comfort.

“Why isn’t Vision doing anything?” Captain America muttered, almost to himself.

“Maybe he’s broken,” Skye suggested. A small smile curved her lips as she put a bullet through the neck of one Chitauri and into the head of another.

“What is he, anyway?” Ward asked. Right, he had arrived later.

Skye beat all the others to the punch. “My Dad’s latest attempt to demonstrate that he hasn’t read Frankenstein.”

“Huh. I would have thought he would have learned from Ultron.”

Skye chuckled mirthlessly. “Tony Stark is a prime example of the difference between intelligent and clever. The first knows, the second learns.” She smiled bitterly. “I know which I would rather be.”

That probably gave more away to Black Widow than might be smart but Skye figured that only mattered if the female Avenger was willing to use her own teammate against an ally. Besides, Skye might not fully trust either of them but she was pretty sure that both Ward and the Winter Soldier would side with her above the Black Widow.

Suddenly, the Chitauri began falling back. Skye stiffened, suspicious.

“Got to be a regroup,” Ward muttered as he took a step closer to her and turned so that neither of the two Avengers could. It was strange to have him talk to her like that and, in a flash, she hit upon why. It was the way he had communicated with Coulson back when Ward been pretending to be SHILED, the backstabbing traitor.

It was the way that he talked to a commanding officer, even if he was occasionally calling her rookie.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Skye muttered, not to Ward exactly but verbalising her thoughts, watching as Vision finally punched one of the Chitauri that strayed too close. “They don’t seem to care that much about Vision, even though he has the Infinity Stone.”

“Then they have something else planned, or they’re trying to lull him – Vision? – into a false sense of security.” Ward had lowered his gun slightly while he spoke but lifted it again to take a shot, only for the both of them to hear the distinctive click of an empty chamber. His hand went to his belt, obviously searching for another magazine, and he froze slightly.

“I’m out.”

Skye bit back a grimace. “I’m close too.” They both turned to look at Captain America with his stupid returning shield. “We need more backup,” Skye said.

The two Avengers glanced at each other. “We have… reinforcements coming,” Captain America said cautiously.

Skye nodded. She carefully considered her reply. “Ultron has as much of a reason to stop the Chitauri as the rest of us.”

Skye kept her eyes on the aliens that were slowly gaining ground and pushing further away from the portal. She trusted that the Black Widow, at least, would get the message that she was trying to convey: that she could get Ultron to help, but she wasn’t going to risk blowing her cover in front of Ward no matter how much personal loyalty he supposedly felt towards her.

The Black Widow, pragmatic as she was, replied calmly, as though there was nothing particularly out of the ordinary with Skye’s suggestion. “Yes, he would be a useful ally.”

“Nat, we’re in a flying city,” Captain America said dryly. “Ultron made it fly.”

“And I believe Quake if she says he will side with us against Thanos and Loki.” There was a single moment where they glared at each other, the two Avengers who were obviously friends even if Skye had the feeling that they didn’t trust each other completely.

Skye took a step back, shaking her head when Ward made to follow her. She flicked her eyes over to the two Avengers, hoping that he got the message that she was trying to send, that he should stay with them. Granted, he would probably think that she wanted him to keep an eye on them rather than the other way around, but that was just the way she wanted it.

He gave a tiny nod even though his jaw flexed so hard that she was surprised that the creak wasn’t audible. Ward would do as he had been told, probably. But Skye had more things to worry about, and trying to persuade Ultron to help would be hard enough without Ward there to antagonise him with his very presence.

Skye stepped away, breaking into an awkward jog the moment she had the space. She didn’t look back at the little knot of people fighting the Chitauri, not even Vision. She also didn’t look up to see if the Winter Soldier was following to cover her. It was a solid bet that he was.

The tension in her spine was starting to get worrying, and Skye could feel the pressure building up that told her that her powers were getting ready to burst out of their own accord. She tried to roll her shoulders, seeing if that would loosen them, but they pulled like a cramp so that they only way to avoid the pain was to leave them all tensed up.

A strange sense of wrongness gnawed at the back of her mind. She tried shifting her shoulder again, wincing at the stab of pain. But that wasn’t it, nor did she think it was the Winter Soldier shadowing her. She shook her head, trying to dislodge whatever it was that was bothering her.

Crack.

Skye jumped at the noise, spinning to find the Winter Soldier emerging from the empty doorway, the door he had just literally kicked off its hinges still rattling on the floor. It only settled when he stood on it so that he could walk over to where Skye was, his face as blank as ever. Skye had to wonder if he was even capable of thinking properly. He reminded her more of computers than of other people.

“Jeez, warn a girl,” she said, frowning at him. The Winter Soldier rolled his eyes in response, one of the most human things she had ever seen him do.

“Your situational awareness needs improvement.”

“Yeah, well, I’m busy trying not to shake this city into teeny, tiny little pieces. That’s kind of got me preoccupied.”

The Soldier grunted but didn’t say anything further, just stood there staring at her. Skye stared right back. “Weren’t you going somewhere?”

Oops. Right. Skye turned on her heel and went right back to jogging. She wasn’t sure where she was going but she figured that if she kept running long enough she would eventually run into at least one of the Ultron units. Since they were all one, she need only persuade that one.

She spun, her powers exploding from her hand and tossing the Chitauri leaping at her against the wall with a crack and the sizzling of ruptured electronics. She distantly remembered seeing the theory that the Chitauri were part robotic, though that came from a SHIELD report that she wouldn’t have had access to and definitely didn’t have the clearance to read, so who knew how reliable it was.

For a second, Skye wondered how they had managed to get passed Ward and the Avengers, but the thought was cut off by a slow clap. Skye spun, seeing the Winter Soldier do the same out of the corner of her eye.

“A city in the sky, and powers unlike any your species has yet possessed. Midgard has become vastly more interesting than during my previous visits.” A chill ran down Skye’s spine. She knew that voice, had seen countless shaky videos. Loki’s smile was so brittle and bright that it emerged from the shadows a good two seconds before the rest of him. His eyes fixed unblinkingly on Skye as he swept into something that was probably meant to be a bow.

“You,” the Winter Soldier said but Skye barely noticed through the drum beat of her heart and the rushing of blood echoing through her ears. Loki’s attention did not waver from her.

“Greetings, my lady.” The smile grew. It was threatening despite Loki’s attempts to be charming. The vibrations in her spine strengthened. “At last.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Schedule of remaining chapters:  
> \- Chapter 18 - 16th of August 2015  
> \- Chapter 19 - 23rd of August 2015  
> \- Chapter 20 - 30th of August 2015


	18. Here's To Broken Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the only luck is bad luck, the only choices are tough choices and Loki has a conversation with himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For once I'm not apologising for the chapter being late. Self high five!

Loki was taller than Skye had expected.

It was such an inane observation, but she had thought that he would be smaller without those ridiculous horns, that they had been compensating for something. She hadn’t really thought about him either, not as a person. He had only ever been a nebulous threat, someone who had tried and failed to take over the world. He was history.

History had a very disturbing grin.

“I have traversed many realms so that I may bask in your presence,” Loki said, taking a step towards her. Though he was putting on an act, Skye could feel herself being weighed and judged, the alien reducing her to exactly what she was worth.

“Yeah?” she said, deciding that the best course of action was to stall until the Winter Soldier decided to get overprotective again or until someone thought to wonder where she had gotten to. “How do you even know who I am?”

“Oh, but such mortal trappings as name and past are immaterial. What matters more is what you are capable of.”

Skye felt her spine stiffen. At least it was no longer vibrating. Funnily enough, her unruly superpower seemed to have calmed down in the face of such an immediate threat. Of course it picked then to desert her. That was absolutely her luck.

“And how do you know what I’m capable of?” she asked.

Loki smiled indulgently, the kind that adults gave to children that were asking stupid questions but were cute while doing so. “The Tesseract is an object of immense power and, like all such objects, rather unwieldy. If you did not possess the power I was searching for, I could not have opened the portal here.”

Skye had suspected as much but it was something else altogether to hear it said out loud. She had figured that her powers could be used to track the Infinity Stones but she really didn’t like the idea that Loki and, presumably, Thanos knew that as well. She basically had a target printed on her back.

“So why do you need my… power?” she asked, going back to the stalling idea. After all, there was no reason why Loki would know what she knew.

“We are looking for these object of immense power that you can detect,” he replied. She wondered if he thought she wouldn’t notice him shifting ever closer. All the stories about Loki talked about his subtlety and ability to manipulate; all Skye had seen was the destruction of New York.

“I thought the two of you knew each other,” the Winter Soldier said, shifting slightly at Skye’s shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the muscles in his arm become all the more prominent as he folded it with the mechanical one.

Loki cocked his head. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

Skye risked turning her head slightly so that she could see the Soldier’s expression, taking a step back so that she wouldn’t loose sight of Loki. The Soldier was scowling. “Because you said that the reason you were hiring me to protect her was because you owed her a favour.”

Skye’s eyes cut over to the Asgardian. Loki was the one who had hired the Winter Soldier to protect her.

Oddly, for a moment it looked as though that was news to him as well. Then his facial muscles seemed to get whatever messaged his brain was sending because they smoothed out and that slightly superior smile returned.

“Ah, but don’t you know? I’m the god of lies.”

The Winter Soldier snorted. “There’s only one god. Pretty sure he doesn’t think he’s a reindeer.”

Skye’s thoughts stuttered. He really didn’t know. “Um, Soldier? He’s actually an alien not a god, but he has been called that. Haven’t you heard about what happened in New York?”

The Winter Soldier blinked. “What happened in New York?”

Skye pointed at Loki. “He did.”

“And the… things?” the Soldier asked, his normally blank face beginning to look sightly tense. Apparently the Russian did care about New York, at least a little. Since he had a Brooklyn accent, it was entirely possible that he had been sent there to perfect his English and had kept a soft spot for the area.

Clearly, Loki had realised that the Soldier wasn’t impressed. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to get that the Soldier could be dangerous. Possibly because he was a freaking Asgardian, so he might not be. Skye was kind of really hoping that they didn’t devolve into a fight, since the Winter Soldier was meant to be protecting her.

Wait.

Loki had hired the Winter Soldier to protect her. Right, he wanted her powers. Or wanted her to use her powers for him, at any rate. Clearly the Winter Soldier needed to learn to research his employers more throughly. Then he wouldn’t get nasty surprises like them turning out to have tried to take over the world that one time.

“You were looking for someone with my powers?” she cut in, hoping to distract them. The both looked at her, Loki giving her a regal nod. “What do you intend to do now that you’ve found me?”

Loki turned so that he could face her fully. Skye noticed the useless detail that he was still wearing the same armor as he had during the Battle of New York. She wondered how often he had them laundered. Sometimes the human mind was an incredibly distractable thing.

“Why, to make you an offer, of course.”

 

Maria wasn’t budging from her position blocking the way out of Phil’s office, no matter how much he glared.

“You do realise that I’m the Director now?” he asked.

“Tough. I work for Stark.” Maria’s hand drifted toward the gun at her hip. “I will shoot you if that’s what it takes to keep you here.”

Phil tried a different tack. “Be reasonable, Maria. There’s haven’t been any reports that Loki is here. Even if he is, he has no reason to go after me again, probably doesn’t even remember killing me.”

No dice. “Do I have to go get Fury?”

“There are civilians down there,” he tried, but it sounded feeble even to his own ears.

The expression on Maria’s face didn’t change. “So direct your assets, Director. Without leaving this room.”

“What’s the point being so close to the city-” which was flying, one of the few things that Phil hadn’t seen in his long and storied career with SHIELD “-if I’m stuck up here.”

“To give you a better sense of the danger on the ground. Sir.” Phil had been in the Army, in another lifetime. Maria was using the exact tone Phil had when herding particularly obnoxious officers. He gave in.

One of the few perks of being the Director, even when Fury was aboard the helicarrier, was that Phil had dibs on the best chair. It was practically pleasant to collapse backwards with a huff. Even his best put-upon expression cut no ice with Maria. God, he wished she were still with SHIELD. But she had been too high profile, and recruiting her back would tell everyone and their dog that SHIELD was back in business.

He looked back at his computer, looking at the best estimates of the locations of all the players. There were substantially less civilians and Ultron bots on the screen - evacuated and destroyed, respectively - but the techs had scrambled to come up with a new symbol for the Chitauri when dozens of portals had opened up in the city.

Phil, as much as anyone, hoped that the Battle of Novi Grad didn’t go the same way as the Battle of New York.

He frowned at the display. It wasn’t historical, which meant that individuals were only displayed if the techs knew their location. There was one player not currently shown that Phil had a very keen interest. It wasn’t that he was worried - Skye could take care of herself - he just wanted to help her out anyway. Because they were friends. He opened a channel on his coms.

“Has anyone seen Agent Skye in…” he glanced at the clock, “the last ten minutes?”

There was a moment of silence, everyone waiting to see if someone else would respond. No one did.

“She headed off towards-” there was a slight pause while Captain America presumably checked the street signs, “-Doorie, Dure Jack-”

Phil did a quick eyeball of the map on his screen. “Đure Jakšića?”

“I know it,” came an accented voice over the coms. Phil had a feeling that he was going to have to have a very frank conversation with Pietro Maximoff once the whole debacle was over. Explain to him all the ways that someone could disappear if they treated one of Phil’s favourite agents with anything less than the respect and adoration she deserved.

“Anywhere she might be stuck?” Phil asked.

“Nothing obvious.” There was as pause as the faint rush of wind that was the constant accompaniment to Pietro’s transmissions stopped. “I will find her,” he said with a steely determination and far more seriousness than Phil had yet heard from him.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to have that conversation after all.

 

“An offer?”

It wasn’t catchy, it wasn’t witty. It wasn’t something that her Dad would say but it cut to the heart of what she wanted to know. Substance over style. She knew what Loki wanted from her. What she didn’t know was what price he was willing to pay, though she could take a guess as to the lengths he would go to if his ‘offer’ was refused.

“My… associate, Thanos, has bid me to offer a place at his side.” Loki was watching her carefully, and Skye prayed that May’s training was sufficient to give her a poker face that the god of lies himself couldn’t read. It seemed to be working, at any rate. “It would be very prestigious indeed.”

Skye let a small, embarrassed smile work its way onto her face, modeled on the one that Jemma used to wear whenever someone had joked that she and Fitz were as good as married. “I’m sure it is, but I’m afraid I’ve never heard of him. I can’t just take your word for it; that wouldn’t be very smart.”

Loki swept a grand bow. It felt like a nod of agreement but Skye didn’t trust it in the slightest. “Indeed.” He took a step forward, moving to put his arm around her. Skye very deliberately didn’t tense. There was a would-be world-conqueror with his arm around her shoulders and guiding her slightly away from the only other person there, the former Soviet assassin he had hired to keep her safe. Problem, what problem? “What can I do to convince you of my sincerity?”

Skye looked at him as though he was insane. “Nothing. Anything I ask can be faked, given enough commitment.”

The smile on his face lost a touch of its smarminess and was replaced with just a smidge of appreciation. Skye didn’t trust that either. “Then I suppose the question is: what will you ask so that I might prove how committed I and Thanos are, how much respect we hold for you?”

Skye laughed. Not even May’s training could help her keep a poker face at that one. “You don’t respect me. You said it yourself: all that matters to you are my powers.”

For a moment, Loki looked taken aback. “And those for whom you fight, they respect you?”

“Yes,” Skye replied as firmly as she could when the image of the Iron Man armor with a dull gleam from the cold Sokovian sky backdropped against the rocky foundations of the castle pushed itself to the forefront of her brain.

“Then where are they?” he asked quietly. Suddenly, Loki was pulling back with a dramatic sweep of his arm. “Do you see them? I do not!”

Crack!

Pietro pulled his fist to his chest with a howl of pain, even as Pietro took a step back with a yelp that was more surprise than pain. It took Skye a few seconds to catch up, first because it had happened to fast and then because it was such a monumentally stupid thing to do that she couldn’t quiet believed he’d tried it.

Pietro had punched Loki. Skye didn’t know whether to kiss him or yell at him for his stupidity.

Loki looked as though he didn’t quite believe what had happened. Skye sympathised. She felt the same, and she had the benefit of the advanced knowledge that Pietro’s power meant that he could come out of nowhere at any time. Loki was in the dark about that one.

What Skye had overlooked was the fact that the Winter Soldier was too.

The sharp retort of the gun echoed strangely through the distant yells and explosions and whatever else was going out outside of their near deserted street, with its rubble and powdered dirt still fresh enough to be hanging on the air. The Winter Soldier had moved fasted.

Pietro’s pain had stopped him from moving faster.

All eyes locked on the the small tear in his great shirt. It was such a small thing for an instant. Then it began to grow, the blood seeping out of the hole and into his shirt, all the more obvious because of the light colour of the cloth.

Distantly, Skye heard someone scream Pietro’s name. It was only as she ran to him, jaming her shoulder under his to keep him upright that she realised that it was hers. That didn’t matter; what mattered was grabbing his hand and pressing it as hard as she could to the wound, encouraging him without words to do what he needed to.

She let go; his hand stayed. She waited a beat and, when he was still putting pressure on the wound, she tore her hand away from where it had been hovering, reaching down and grabbing the bottom of her shirt. She ducked out from under him only long enough to pull it over her head, darting back under him when the lack of support for less than a second caused him to sway.

She shoved her shirt in under his hand, the better to stem the blood. It didn’t matter to her that she was in only her bra. They could stare if they really wanted; Skye had other priorities. Chief among them was making sure that Pietro made it out of the whole mess alive.

She rang a finger over his ear. It was decidedly non-sexy but she found what she was looking for: the small metallic object that was the old school earpieces. She had it out in a second, shoving it into her own ear regardless of the hygiene implications. Pietro’s life was at stake; that was more important than her sensibilities.

“Pietro has been shot,” she said. “I repeat, Pietro has been shot.”

“What is your location, Quake?” came a familiar voice. It was completely professional but it made Skye want to cry with relief. Coulson was there; everything would be okay.

Skye opened her mouth to reply but she was cut short by a hand gripping her shoulder. It was strong but stopped just shy of being painful. She looked up.

“I will heal him,” Loki said smoothly. “It would be such a shame if such a small misunderstanding were to have large consequences.” Skye didn’t need to see the hard glitter in his eyes to hear the warning. Loki didn’t want her contacting anyone and they both knew which of them would win in a fight.

“Quake?” Coulson was asking through the earpiece.

“Cancel that,” she said. She almost couldn’t believe that she managed to keep her voice steady. “My mistake.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end. “You made a mistake as to whether or not he was shot?” Coulson asked his voice full of skepticism.

There were so many things that she wanted to say but couldn’t, not with Loki there to hear every word and god knows who on the other end. “You know me; I say bang when I try to fire a gun.”

They both knew that it had been over a year since she had done that. She was orders of magnitude better trained than she had been back then. “Are you in the presence of a hostile?” Coulson asked, reverting to his professionalism.

“I know, I know. Remedial gun training with Ward,” she replied instead. “It’ll be just like New York all over again.” She didn’t know if that was clear enough for Coulson to understand but she didn’t dare risk saying more. “Quake out.”

“Wait, Skye-” Coulson’s voice was cut off as she pulled the earpiece out. She looked at Loki.

“You said that you would heal him,” she said, tone uncompromising. Loki looked at her and there was more than a hint of admiration in his eyes.

“So I did.” He crouched down next to Pietro, dragging away Skye’s bloody shirt and Pietro’s hands despite the Sokovian’s half-incoherent protests. Skye didn’t think he was even aware that Loki was about to help him.

For the first time, Skye got a good look at where the bullet had gone in. It was the single worst place, right above the lungs. Yes, there was the tell-tale unnatural wheezing that meant that fluid were starting to seep into the chest cavity, possibly into the lungs themselves. Skye was no doctor but it really didn’t sound good.

Loki physically shoved his hand into the wound, widening it considerably. Pietro threw back his head and screamed. Skye focused on the feel of the earpiece as it dug into her flesh. She couldn’t have loosened her fist if she had tried, but the pain was enough to distract her slightly from Pietro’s. That was enough. Loki squeezed; Pietro choked out a sob, though it was more movement than sound. The pain was clearly too much.

Skye looked away even though she wished that she hadn’t. She wanted to be looking at him, make sure that it was clear that she was right there with him. But she just couldn’t make herself turn back, her muscles locking and tears beginning to seep from her eyes. Nothing could block out Pietro’s exhausted attempts at screaming.

Her gaze caught on the Winter Soldier. She half expected a rush of… something. Anger, or hate. That had come easily enough when Ward had killed Koenig, had betrayed them. But nothing bubbled up when she looked at the Winter Soldier. He was like a blank doll, staring off into the shadows when he had no instructions. He had shot on instinct, startled, that much had been clear. Skye couldn’t find it in herself to blame him.

She kept looking at him until the screaming was reduced to small whimpers. The Winter Soldier didn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that he had shot someone who had posed no real danger. He was, after all, an assassin. His job description could be summed up in the single word: killer. The only question that remained for Skye was to wonder exactly what the Soviets had done to his mind that he would find the shadows next to one of the buildings so very interesting.

“There,” Loki said at last. “He will live.”

Skye turned back to the Asgardian and the Sokovian. Pietro was lying down, still except for the occasional tremor that ran the length of his body. He was paler than Skye had ever seen someone still conscious, if that was indeed what his open eyes meant. There was no reaction or evidence that he was aware of what was going on around him.

“Will there be any consequences?” she asked, looking to Loki. It was to make sure that she could spot any deception rather than because seeing Pietro hurt made her want to trash something. At least, that was what she told herself.

Loki wiped his bloody hands on her shirt. Skye tried not to think of that as symbolic. “Of course. Midgardians are not meant to recover from such wounds, or not in such a way. But he will live, and you will have more pressing concerns.”

Ah. Right. Pitch time. Of course it was coming. And yet Skye couldn’t help but breath a sigh of relief to learn that Pietro would survive. “Do you know that physiologists have done studies that found that the best way to get people to buy something from you is to give them a gift? Even though the value of the gift is much less, they feel…” Skye searched for the word.

“Indebted,” Loki completed for her. “You said that I did not respect you, that only your powers interested me. You were mostly right, then. You are increasingly less so.”

That took Skye a moment to puzzle. She scoffed. “Look at you. The would-be king of the world. Or perhaps you’re shooting for king of the universe, since you’re going after the Infinity Stones. Either way, do you really expect me to believe that you have some kind of benevolent agenda? That you actually have my best interest at heart?”

“No, I do not,” Loki said stopping her short. “You would be a fool to do so. But that does not mean that we cannot come to an agreement. You know what we want: you, by Thanos’ side, and all the Infinity Stones in our grasp. The real question is what do you want badly enough that we can give you to make it happen?”

Her first instinct was to scoff, to protest that there was nothing that they could offer her that would make her betray her principles. Except… Except she hadn’t been in New York during either the battle or the aftermath but it was deeply, intensely personal. Coulson - AC, DC, C-Man, Boss - had died. Like, honest to god, final judgment, died. Fury hadn’t woken him from a coma, he had brought Coulson back from the dead. That was the kind of thing religions were made of.

Novi Grad was a lot better off than New York, simply because the Avengers had been evacuating as many people as possible to save them from Ultron. There had been less people to start with and a good chunk of those less people had already been moved out of harm’s way. But every one of however many people might be killed by the Chitauri had the potential to do just as much good as Coulson had after what was meant to be the end of his life.

“You bastard,” she said quietly. Loki stiffened but didn’t interrupt. “That’s what you want me to ask for, isn’t it? You want me to ask you to take the Chitauri away. My price would be you ending the problem you’re causing in the first place.”

For a moment, Loki’s smile froze. “They do call me the Trickster,” he said, almost gently.

“I think they might be confusing a trick with a trap,” Skye replied.

“There is often very little difference.” Loki looked at her calmly. “Yes, I have ensured that you have no choice but to bargain with us, and my brother would be the first to point out that it was not well done of me. But make no mistake: you have the advantage here. Thanos has scoured the Nine Realms for powers like yours and, in all the Nine Realms, there is only you.”

“You need me,” Skye whispered. It was beginning to hit home. Sure, she had known that her ability to use her earthquake powers to track the Infinity Stones would make them want her but it hadn’t really hit just how far and wide they had been searching. How desperate they were.

Loki nodded. He seemed pleased that she understood even though it weakened his negotiating position. “We do. We need you alone, in all the Nine Realms, and you come from one of only two worlds that has seen Thanos’ forces off. Let me be clear; there are times for unequal negotiation. When the parties must work together, unequal outcomes will cause nothing but friction.”

Skye felt her lips purse. “How does that fit into forcing me to negotiate?”

“Because I must. In a fair negotiation, both parties must be able to walk away, or neither.” Loki stood up from his crouch by Pietro’s side. Skye felt her neck groan in protest as she looked up, so she got to her feet too.

“Your problems are not mine,” she said coldly. “I don’t owe you anything, and forcing me to negotiate is hardly going to make it easier for us to work together, if that’s how this ends.”

The Winter Soldier shifted, drawing Skye’s gaze. He was still looking at the shadows. “This is taking too long,” he said. Skye didn’t know if he was talking to her or Loki.

“Indeed,” Loki agreed. “There is no discussion that you must treat with me, correct?”

Not necessarily. Someone could still go through the portal and work out how to close it from that side. But… But that person would be stuck there anyway. There was no way around that. Someone had to go through the portal and stay there.

That was actually the outcome Loki wanted for Skye. He wanted her to go through the portal and to close the portal behind her. If anyone else did it, they would have to fight their way in and would probably be killed once the portal closed. Skye would be welcomed, and would be kept alive at least. The only cost would be that she would have to leave everyone she loved behind.

Only. Ha.

“Its the best option,” she said slowly. “Not the only option, but the best.” She pressed her lips together even more. It was the smart thing to do. Push aside all the pride screaming at her not to let him win, it was the smart option. It would benefit so many people. The only real loser was, well, Skye. And she could name whatever compensation she wanted.

Loki must have seen the look in her eye, gauged the moment when she realised that, yes, she was going to do this. Not for her, but for everyone in Novi Grad, for the rest of the world, because Loki and Thanos needed her and they couldn’t afford to stop before they had her agreement.

“Name your price,” he said, voice quiet in respect. She felt as though someone had died. And that someone was her.

“Can you put a price on family, friends?” she asked, feeling her voice break. She knelt back down next to Pietro, taking his hand in hers. She squeezed. It might have been her imagination, but she thought that she felt a small squeeze back. She looked back up at Loki. “You’re not just asking for my life. You’re not just asking me to leave them behind. You’re asking me to take away part of their happiness, to hurt them.”

Loki was completely serious. There was none of the mockery that Skye had seen in the recordings from Stark Tower. He let her keep that much dignity, at least. “Name your price,” he said again. “It will be paid.”

Skye could have considered for years what to ask but she knew to her bones there was only one thing worth leaving all her loved ones for. “Protection,” she said. “You and Thanos don’t just pack up and leave Earth alone, you swear to protect it from any outside threats.”

Loki cocked his head slightly. Clearly, whatever he thought that Skye was going to ask, it hadn’t been that. “Midgard has the Avengers,” he pointed out.

Skye nodded. “Yeah. They’re the good guys. And the problem with good guys is that there are always far too few of them, and they never have as much power as the bad guys.”

Loki slowly began to smirk. “You would, of course, need to retrieve the Infinity Stone that we used to locate you,” he said, even though he hadn’t actually agreed to her demand. Also, hey! He was totally trying to change the deal after the fact.

“And you would, of course, have to ensure that Pietro is taken somewhere safe, the place where he will recover the best,” she said, mimicking his tone.

His grin widened, but there was something else in his else. Then that was gone and he held out his hand. Skye reached out with hers, thinking that they were going to shake on it, only for Loki to take her by surprise and bring it up to his lips. It should have been cheesy; it felt momentous.

“Then, my lady, you and I have a deal.”

Skye swallowed, nodding. But… “Skye.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She looked him straight in the eye. “My name is Skye. If we’re going to work together, then you might as well use it.”

He nodded slightly. “Then you are well met, Lady Skye.” He looked over at the Soldier. “I trust he will do your bidding until we reconvene.” The Winter Soldier looked away from the shadows, giving Loki a hard look, but said nothing. He just turned to Skye, waiting for instructions.

She looked down at Pietro, trying to commit his face to memory as quickly as she could. Then she stood and, without a single glance back at the life she might have had, she let the Winter Soldier fall into step behind her, and she walked away.

 

Loki watched Skye and the other Midgardian go, waiting until they were well and truly out of earshot before speaking.

“Some warning would have been appreciated,” he said. “Or at least some mischief.”

A figure emerged from the shadows where the one-armed Migardian had been staring. Loki did not need to wait for it to step fully into the light to know who it was. He had known from the moment the one-armed Migardian had been confused about Loki knowing Quake.

The figure in the shadows was Loki himself.

“Some things are best played close to the vest,” Loki’s voice voice came from the figure, as silky as ever. “There are risks, and then there are risks.”

As a shapeshifter, and one who found such tricks amusing, it was not the first time that Loki had been the recipient of an outsider’s perspective on his own form. It was, however, the first time that the familiar beat of his own magic coursing through his heart occurred not just outside his body but in two places at once. The sensation pulled uncomfortably at the Mind Stone’s compulsion, still jammed awkwardly into his mind.

“How?” he asked himself.

“An Infinity Stone, one with power over time. How else?” The older version of Loki was dressed as he often did when on Midgard, in the garments they wore as formal wear.

“They are found, then?” he asked. Loki is not sure how he feels about that. On the one hand, it was what he had been working towards for some time and it was the outcome that meant the least amount of mental pain. On the other hand, he would like nothing more than to see all traces of Thanos wiped from the Nine Realms.

“Did you not participate in the conversation I just witnessed?”

Loki did not fall for it. He knew all his own tricks. “If you do not wish to answer, do not answer,” he could not help but say with no small amount of bite.

The tightening of the jaw is familiar, and somewhat disconcerting to view from the outside. “That was badly done,” he said.

Loki bristled, not unlike back when he and Thor had still spent time together. “She knew of the Infinity Stone without my needing to explain. Do you really think this outcome was not inevitable?”

“It was,” he agreed. “Lady Skye is a friend, however.” Friend? He - they - did not have friends. They had allies, and a brother, but never any friends. “I know. I would not have thought it either. But she is and it is… unpleasant to be reminded of how we came to know one and other.”

Loki looked at his older counterpart carefully. The other him still had not said why he had traveled back in time. Since he had not volunteered it, Loki knew no amount of interrogation would draw the answer out. No, better to ask questions that might actually be answered.

“The Midgardian with one arm claimed you said you owed Lady Skye a favour?”

The other Loki did not hesitate. “She removed a dangerous influence from my mind. I hope to return the favour.”

Loki felt his breath catch. “Thanos’ influence? She can remove it?”

“She will be the cause of it being removed,” the older him said. That could cover a wide variety of situations, indeed. But that engendered more questions.

“She gave you - us - our freedom and you wish to return the favour. But, if you wish to give her freedom, why would you allow me to deliver to Thanos?” Loki couldn’t fathom it. Even simply persuading her before he had known what he would owe her had made him uneasy. “Once he has her, he will never let her go.”

The other Loki took a step away. “You walk the same path as her. There are things that must be done. Come, we have thought this through enough to know: not all things can be changed. Not even those which are unpleasant. Even to tell you risks it all.”

Loki felt the annoyance bubble up within him. “That is all you have to say?”

The other him smiled, sharp as Sif’s favourite sword. “Go. Forget you ever saw me. Rest assured that all will turn out well enough in the end.”

Even Thor could have seen the flaw in that argument. “If it all turned out so well, why are you here? You could have returned the favour in your own time.”

The other Loki looked at him and, for a moment, he looked as weary as Odin before an Odinsleep. “All things must pass. Some chances do not come again.” He smiled. It was tired but the most genuine expression Loki had ever seen on his own face. “Some friendships are worth the risk.”

“And yet you still have not said how I may avoid this risk. Come now, surely out interests are aligned.”

The other Loki stepped back into the shadows and the changing light shifted unnaturally against the clothes. An illusion, a projection rather than the real older him. Loki couldn’t help but admire his own skill even as the illusion began to fade.

“Anything that must be done, I will do. But if you cannot just let it be-”

“You know I cannot.”

All that was left of the illusion was the piercing green eyes and its mouth. “Then there is one thing you can do. The most difficult task of all.” The eyes faded; the last Loki say of the lips, they were quirking into a smile. His last words faded out on a gentle breeze. “Be her friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I just put up that chapter on time, having had a blast writing it and ending on a positive-ish note? Yes! And now I have a whole week to write the next chapter, rather than the three days I had for this one. Luxury. 
> 
> Schedule of remaining chapters:  
> \- Chapter 19 - 23rd of August 2015  
> \- Chapter 20 - 30th of August 2015


	19. I'll Never Have To Say Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which quite a few people get nasty surprises and Loki is too smug for his own good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit see the end of the chapter for an update on when the nest chapter will go up.

The moment they were out of Loki’s sight, Skye skidded to a halt and spun to face the Winter Solider. She tried her best to imitate the look on May’s face when she was evaluating a hostile.

“Loki? The guy paying you is Loki?”

The Winter Soldier didn’t look bothered at all. Either he was really desensitised to violence or he really had no idea who Loki was. Jury was out. He shrugged. “He came up to me in a bar, offered me the chance to get my memories back and an excuse to get out of South America. I had nothing better to do.”

“You just went along with what some guy you had never met before asked you to do?” Okay, granted, that was kind of how she had met Miles, if you substituted internet cafe for a bar and a chance for her rebellious teenage self to stick it to the government. Still, she had been a teenager; the Winter Soldier was a grown man.

The Soldier’s jaw seemed to tighten and a single muscle on his jawline jumped a little, a small fragment of human emotion. “Like I said, didn’t have anything better to do.”

“Then learn from it,” she challenged him, acutely aware of the fact that he had a lot more training than she did at killing people. She might have superpowers but they were still in a floating city. Hell, she could feel the air beginning to get thin. She squared her shoulders anyway.

The Winter Soldier looked at her as though she had just began sprouting astrophysics jargon in Egyptian. There was no comprehension there whatsoever. It was like he had no concept of how to actually- Wait, he had said that he was looking for his memories.

“How much memory loss are we talking?” asked carefully. She didn’t want to offend him but Skye was beginning to see what the problem was. “Can you remember learning things?”

The muscle in his jaw jumped again. “Anything HYDRA needed me to know, it programmed it in.”

“HYDRA,” Skye spat out like it was the filthiest of swearwords. Because it was. “Right, ignore anything they might have… programmed into you about how to acquire information. You’re going to have to learn what anyone else your age would already get: learning from your mistakes.”

“Which means?” he asked. He looked genuinely confused. She wondered if he could even remember making mistakes.

“When something goes wrong, you try to identify the problem and then you do something different the next time you try to get that result.”

“And what is the result you’re trying to achieve by teaching me this?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. Skye suddenly found herself the complete focus of that unwavering attention. It was seriously unnerving.

Cards on the table, then. “I’m not going anywhere with someone I don’t trust.” She folded her arms. She was under no illusions that it looked in the least bit intimidating. Shirtless, with only a exercise bra to preserve her modesty, it was more obvious than usual that Skye was probably less than a third of the Winter Soldier’s size, and she’d be lucky if she was half as well trained. “Why are you sticking around, anyway? Surely you know that you can’t trust Loki?”

He shrugs. Skye notices that the movement was made slightly lopsided by the weight of his metal arm. It was completely irrelevant but she noticed anyway. “Any chance of getting my memories back is better than I have now.”

“Yeah, see, that doesn’t work for me. You still haven’t given me any reason to think that you won’t turn on me the moment Loki tells you to.”

The Soldier crossed his arms. Skye deliberately ignored the bunching of muscle and the fact that - against all odds - they looked even bigger. She already knew he could squash her like a bug. “Do you need to? You trust him to not go back on his word. You were the one saying that he’s the god of lies.”

Skye felt herself flush slightly. Luckily it didn’t show that well on her skin. “Yeah, but there’s a difference.” He shot her a skeptical look. “There is! I made a call when backed into a corner. That’s not the same thing as trusting him.”

“You trusted him enough,” the Winter Soldier said. “Besides, I don’t like the idea of an alien invasion any more than you do.”

Skye sighed. He had a point and, besides, she wasn’t sure she could stop him if he really wanted to follow her. “Fine. But I will totally shove an earthquake into your arm if you try anything fishy.” Skye turned and began to job back towards the portal, only to be brought up short by the Winter Soldier’s reply.

“Sure. You’re the boss.”

Huh. Skye was the boss. Her lips twitched slightly. She could live with that.

 

Skye being the boss lasted all of five minutes, until they had nearly made it back to the portal and the Winter Soldier skidded to a halt.

“I’m not going to work with Captain America,” he said flatly.

“But he tells such good Cold War jokes,” Sky muttered under her breath, wondering if Coulson felt that same exasperation all the time. Louder, she said: “I don’t want you to work with him.” The Winter Soldier cut her a disbelieving look. “Seriously. Do you really think that he would be okay with the plan to cut a deal with Loki?”

The Soldier didn’t even hesitate. “Not at all.”

“Yeah, that’s why we’re not going to tell the Avengers. We have a solution, one that benefits everybody. The last thing we need is the Avengers trying to stop us because it would be giving Loki that he wanted.”

The Soldier kept looking at her. “We are giving Loki what he wants.”

“Yeah, but we aren’t just giving it to him for free. We’re making sure that he pays for it, now and every time that the Earth is in danger.” Skye shook her head slightly. “I don’t think that the Avengers would get that.”

Coulson would. He wouldn’t be happy, but he’d get it. Skye still wasn’t going to tell him, or ask for his help, for the simple reason that he would absolutely get that it was the smart choice but he still wouldn’t let her go. It didn’t matter that Skye could look after herself, that she knew that she’d probably be safe. He would still move heaven and earth to stop her from going with the alien that had killed him.

That was what friends did.

The Soldier was still considering her, completely oblivious to her internal discussion. “Don’t you think that they will try to interfere anyway?”

Of course they would. “Yeah. That’s why I have a proposition for you, since you’re so determined to stick around.”

“Yeah?” For a moment, the generic American accent with hints of Brooklyn peeler away to become all New Yorker attitude. “That is?”

“You don’t want to work with Captain America? Good. Go fight him, just enough to keep him out of the way while I go and take the Mind Stone off Vision.”

The Soldier considered. “I have no idea who that is,” he said. “But I can go with it. What are you going to do about the redhead?”

Skye had a pretty good idea what she was going to do to distract the Black Widow. It would be another case of setting aside her dislike for the methods in favour of actually getting things done. Besides, it looked like the Black Widow already disliked Ward; what would it matter if they fought again?

“I have plans,” was all that Skye said in return. With anyone else - well, on the side of the good guys, at least - there would have been some sort of protest at how vague Skye’s answer was. For the Winter Soldier, it was enough. He just gave a sharp nod.

“What now?” he asked.

Skye jerked her head in the direction of the portal. “Lets just say I have an inkling that there will be more people at the portal than when we left.”

 

Captain America was clearly swearing as he tried to rip the head off an Ultron drone. Skye could tell by the colour that he was going, since Captain America wasn’t going to go red the same as any other person. He had the supersoldier serum making sure of that. No, he was clearly pissed beyond all belief, and why shouldn’t he be?

In the time it had taken Skye to talk to Loki, the battle between the Avengers and the Chitauri had turned into a three-way battle. Skye wished that she could have been surprised but Ultron had let his pride get in the way of working with the Avengers against a threat that Ultron had been prepared to commit mass murder to defeat.

Unfortunately, it was clear that he had their Dad’s pride. And his common sense.

“Isn’t that-” the Soldier Started.

“Yep.”

“Why is he-”

“Because processing power isn’t the same thing as common sense,” Skye replied. Sometimes… Ah, well. There was nothing that she could do about that, except be glad that she had been born with more common sense than brains, unlike the rest of her family. Even if the rest of the SHIELD agents wouldn’t agree that Skye had much common sense, she was working from a lower threshold.

There was a pause while the Winter Soldier digested all that. They watched as Vision shot a beam out of his forehead, hitting one of the Ultron bots and completely disintegrating it. They didn’t blink. The Stone had mind powers; of course that would translate to being able to shoot an energy beam out of it.

Alright, so maybe common sense wasn’t as universal as she would like to think.

“What’s the plan?” the Winter Soldier asked. Right, Skye was in charge. She had almost forgotten that through the assault of the lack of logic.

“Get me one of the Ultron bots alone, where none of the Avengers can see.” Skye knew that she couldn’t take the Avengers on her own, not even with Ward and the Winter Soldier. Sure, the Chitauri were keeping them occupied but that also meant that Skye getting anywhere near either Vision or the portal would be noticed in an instant. She needed help.

Ultron would side with her.

The Winter Soldier nodded, spinning around to head off along the street, barely skirting the buildings on the side. Skye stayed where she was. She knew that she had a reasonable spot, just inside the mouth of another street. It was partially hidden while also being easy to find if someone knew what they were looking for, and Skye could still keep track of everything that was going on in the fight.

And what a fight it was.

Here’s the thing that Skye hadn’t known about fighting, because she had never really seen a three-way fight before: so much of it was about split-second decisions from the gut to try and achieve a particular goal. When there was only two sides, it was comparatively easy. All that the fighters had to do was try to hurt their opponents. Not so with the fight that Skye was watching.

The Black Widow seemed to have run out of ammo because she had discarded her gun. Instead, she was attacking each of the Chitauri individually, with a knife so wickedly sharp that Skye could see the edge from a good two hundred meters away. She ran at a piece of concrete sidewalk that had been broken and was partially sticking up in the aim, using it as a ramp to push off.

She landed on the back of one of the Chitauri, ducking a swipe from another alien that tried to dislodge her from its fellow. In an instant, the Black Widow had sliced the knife across the Chitauri’s throat, causing it to scream. But it wasn’t enough to put down the alien. Widow rose up slightly to better improve her leverage and so she could bring more of her weight to bear on the edge of the knife, jamming it in further.

Suddenly, the Chitauri bucked, tossing Widow right off. Her knife stuck firm even as its owner his the cobblestones of the main street - dear god, what were the town planners thinking? - and letting out a small expulsion of breath At least, that was what it looked like to Skye; long story short, that would definitely leave a bruise.

She wouldn’t want to be Widow in the morning.

None of this was persuading Skye to think that what she had chosen was wrong. Skye had made the choice to help Loki knowing that there were more Chitauri than the Avengers could deal with. The fact that Widow was down fighting them with a knife when they were so extensively outnumbered just reinforced the fact that Skye had made the right decision. Even Captain America was beginning to look tired and he had mad science on his side to stop that from happening.

If Skye didn't go through with her end of the deal, there was no doubt that the Avengers couldn't actually stop the Chitauri, not this time. This Chitauri would actually win. Loki would win. Thanos would win. The only people who would lose was all of Earth.

Sky knew what she was going to say long before the Winter Soldier brought Ultron over to her. Well, Ultron . One of the Ultrons, anyway she wondered, idly, what it was like to be one of many and yet only one. It was a pointless thought, the only purpose of which was to distract her from the upcoming fight.

“Skye,” Ultron said. If he had possessed a human voice, he would have sounded almost relieved. At least, that was what Skye thought. It was kind of hard to tell with Ultron.

“Ultron”, she said. She sighed. “I need your help.”

“What do you need?” There was no trace of suspicion there, nothing to indicate that any of the Avengers had let slip that Skye was not actually on his side.

She took a deep breath. “I’ve done a deal with Loki. The Chitauri will go and Thanos will protect the Earth against whoever might try to attack it in the future.”

Every joint in the Ultron bot locked, rendering him completely still. It was different than if a human had done it; a human wouldn’t have that accompanying whir, like a disc that was spinning too fast. “Those are very generous concessions, Skye. What did you have to give to get that result?”

There was no wiggle room there. Just as well. It meant that there was no temptation. “The Mind Stone… and me.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

That was fast. Definite. “Ultron, that’s the answer that I expected from the Avengers.”

Not even that comparison was enough to make him pause. “You don’t have to do this. It isn’t your job to give yourself up. You don’t owe anyone that sacrifice.”

It just went to show what Ultron knew. Giving herself up was exactly what Skye had done to get into SHIELD. It was exactly what she had done to get in Ultron’s good books. But he was also right in a way. Those had all been gambles, traps even. It was just that she had been the bait. Her deal with Loki was different though. If anything, Loki was the one who had baited the trap.

Skye resolved not to think about that.

“This isn’t something that anyone does because they owe someone. I’m doing this because it has to be done. Because I’m prepared to pay that price to save the world. And I came to you because I thought that my younger brother would understand that.”

Ultron’s expression didn’t change. Skye wished that she had complete control over her facial muscles like that. But his words betrayed him. “You don’t have to-”

“Yes, I do.” She took a breath to steady herself. “Its me or not at all. This offer doesn’t extend to anyone else. Ultron, think about. The very person we’re trying to stop will stop anyone else from ever threatening the earth like he did. That’s not a short-term delay like the Avengers have done; this solves Earth’s vulnerability once and for all.”

“And the only cost is you.”

Skye shrugged. The freeness of the movement reminded her that she was still shirtless. “I’m prepared to pay it.” She looked back at the fight, quickly, but her gaze found its way back to him. “You’re my brother, Ultron, but that doesn’t meant that you have a say in this.”

There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch on forever, the distant sounds of battle and the inhuman screams of the Chitauri seeming the louder for it. Skye shifted her weight from one leg to another, not nervous but feeling the tension. What more could she say? She had said her piece, and it wasn’t as though she had any way to force Ultron to do something that he didn’t want to.

At last, he broke the silence between them. “You’ve really made up your mind?”

“Absolutely.”

Slowly, more slowly than would have been possible if he had been limited by organic muscles rather than gears and  steel, Ultron nodded. “What do you need?”

 

The Ultron bots’ patterns of movement changed.

Tony noticed it immediately, even without FRIDAY in his ears telling him that something had fundamentally changed. Not a few seconds before, Ultron had been attacking both the Avengers and the Chitauri. Suddenly, all of his focus shifted to the Avengers, three more Ultron’s converging on Tony in an instant.

Tony dived, skidding a little too close to the top of a nearby roof for his comfort. He wasn’t Harry Potter; he didn’t need to show off through flying because he had nothing else going for him. There was an almighty crash behind him, even louder than Thor periodically summoning lighting.

Behind the mask, Tony grinned. Ultron hadn’t upgraded the designs. The bots still had the same turning issues that he had been too lazy to fix in the Iron Legion, with none of the innate programming that Tony had put in to prevent them from making just those sorts of turns. Ultron needed to learn not to touch Tony’s stuff, cause he always knew it better.

“Nicely done, Stark,” Thor boomed, cheerfully. Tony was seriously considering investing in a psychiatrist. Enjoy fighting that much couldn’t be healthy. And that was coming from Tony, the poster child for mental issues. And Daddy issues. Which, you know, not even Tony had enough money to pay a psychiatrist to unpack Thor’s issues with Odin.

“Thanks, Thunder Mountain.” He looked out across the fighting, as much as he could with the helmet limiting his vision. He might actually have to consider practicality over style eventually… Nah. “Did anyone else just get piled on by Ultron?”

“Indeed. Their movements have changed completely,” Thor said, once again proving that, when it came to battle, he wasn’t all swinging hammers and hoping that they made contact.

“They appear to be attempting a different strategy,” said the zombie on the flying submarine. Tony was still pissed though he did acknowledge that he was glad to have simply had the opportunity to think that sentence.

“Any idea what it is?” asked Black Widow. She sounded more than a little winded. Shit. It must be bad for the Russian to let on that she was human rather than a Soviet built killing machine.

“They’re attacking us but completely ignoring the Chitauri,” came the slightly panting voice of Captain America. “Actually, they’re avoiding Ward as well, though he’s still fighting the Chitauri. If there’s been a change of strategy on their side, he hasn’t been informed.”

“Quake also went for help from Ultron some time ago,” Black Widow said. “Ultron arrived and initially provided assistance but Quake didn’t return.”

Tony completely ignored the swoop in his stomach. Didn’t happen. He’d swear as much before Congress. Still, Coulson had news. “I had her on the private channel I was using to direct Quicksilver just a few minutes ago when she informed me of Quicksilver’s condition. Then she claimed that she had been mistaken and that he hadn’t been shot after all.”

“How likely is that?” Captain America asked.

“Agent Skye has been shot before. I doubt she would make the mistake.”

Tony blinked. Skye had gotten shot? When had that happened and why hadn’t anyone told him? No, wait. He didn’t care. He didn’t… Damnit. This was why he had never considered having kids. If you had asked anyone, literally anyone, they would have said that he would make a terrible father and they would have been right. He just… He wished he could have stuck with machines.

“Where’s Quicksilver?” Hawkeye asked.

Tony was already a step ahead of him. “The Witch has been radio silent for awhile too.”

There was a beat in which Tony thought that the others were trying to remember the last time that they had heard something from either of the Maximoffs. The guy - who knew his name was Pietro - had gone off coms for practical reasons. He had been zipping around the city and would have just annoyed everyone else if they had to listen to him ask what he should do next every three seconds, but his sister had at least started out on the same channel as the rest of them.

“A lot of people seem to be going missing,” Hawkeye observed. There was no real emotion in his voice, unusual for him. It was pure observation. Tony frowned. He had kind of expected Agent to chime in there with the actual list of people out of radio contact.

“Aye,” Thor said. “I do not like it. There is something at work beyond what we know.”

“I hate to be the one to point it out,” said Bruce. It had taken a lot of cajoling, even compared to their normal relationship, for Tony to convince him to some to Sokovia. Only the fact that Captain America had always tried to be fair about the Hulk has been able to persuade him. “The Tesseract is clearly being used and Asgard is not responding. Its possible that there is something going on there that’s influencing this.”

“Loki, you mean,” Thor said. He didn’t snap or bluster, which Tony took to mean that he had thought about that idea himself. “I watched him die.”

“Would it be the first time that he had pretended to be dead?”  asked Widow, still panting.

There was a slight hesitation that was the closest that Tony had ever heard Thor coming to being begrudging. “No,” he admitted. “Though there would always be some sign, some mischief that could not be explained. Nothing like this.”

“Just because you haven’t noticed anything doesn’t mean it's not there,” Hawkeye pointed out. Tony blasted the Ultron unit that had tried to sneak up on him, thing that he wasn’t paying attention just because he was listening to the radio chatter. “No offense, Thor, but you haven’t really been spending a whole lot of time on Asgard recently.”

“Indeed.” Thor sounded troubled. “My father has been particularly against my interest in Midgard and I deemed it best if I limited my time on Asgard. I fear that you may be correct, friend Barton, that I would not know if there had been any indications that Loki was not dead.”

“Can we get back to the problem at hand?” Tony asked, savouring the irony that he was the one trying to stop other people from going off on a tangent. He was an actual adult. “As interesting as all this is, it still doesn’t explain why Ultron has suddenly decided to change from fighting the Chitauri to helping them.”

“Well-”

The coms exploded into swearing. Tony’s fight against another Ultron bot stuttered slightly. What the hell had just happened?

 

There were few things less welcome in the middle of a fight with killer AI bots than an alien invasion but the surprise reappearance of the alien that had kill you was definitely one of them.

That was Phil’s two cents.

The sharp snap had everyone on the bridge whipping out weapons. That was the beauty of working with the kind of agents who had not just remained loyal but were also dedicated enough to work on the new helicarrier: the fall of the old SHIELD had everyone so twitchy that the slightest noise out of place had everyone ready to shoot, if not actually shooting.

And every weapon was pointing directing at Loki. Unfortunately, he seemed to have Pietro Maximoff slung over one shoulder.

“Hold your fire,” Phil called with not small amount of regret. He was naturally a more easygoing man than the previous director - who was, incidentally, striding onto the bridge not ten seconds after Loki had arrived - but he still really, really wanted to shoot Loki. Call him human, but the Asgardian had actually killed him.

Loki narrowed his eyes at Phil. “Have we met?”

Phil smiled blandly. “Briefly.”

“Well, Migardians,” Loki dismissed. He didn’t do anything as plebeian as shrug but he still managed to convey the impression that he would if he wasn’t several degrees better educated and classier than everyone else. Although that might be the anger talking.

“I see that you have one of ours,” Fury said.

Loki swung Pietro off his shoulder and held him out like he weighed nothing. Which, well, he was a former street kid but then again Loki was an Asgardian and Phil had seen how strong Thor had been even without the normal powers of their species. Phil looked at one of the closer agents and indicated with a slight tilt of his head that the man should relieve Loki of the Sokovian.

The agent was clearly reluctant to do so and too well trained to say anything but not so well trained as to not let it show. Phil felt a pang of longing for May but it wasn’t the old days flying around in the Bus, not anymore. May had to hold down the fort and run what was left of SHIELD that wasn’t currently dealing with Ultron and the impromptu alien invasion. Phil almost envied her, except that she also had to deal with Gonzales.

Phil knew which deal he would prefer.

Slowly, Phil raised his eyebrows, not letting the bland expression that he used to use so very much before he had died slip from his face. It was what they all expected of him, even though he was on his second chance and he didn’t want to waste it being flat and bland. The agent caved, lowering his weapon and stepping forward.

Loki practically poured Pietro into the waiting agent’s arms and it would almost have been funny to see the agent buckle under the weight if it hadn’t served to reinforce just how much stronger Asgardians were physically than humans. Phil didn’t take his eyes of the alien, though he didn’t doubt that it wasn’t the real one. Loki seemed particularly fond of his double trick.

“Why would you rescue one of ours when we're in the middle of fighting you?” Phil asked, because Loki much know that they were wondering so there was nothing to lose and at least the sliver of a chance that Loki would answer.

“I did not intend to harm him. Unfortunately, he interrupted an important conversation that I was having and a man in my employ saw fit to shoot him for the transgression.”

Phil glanced at Pietro, just to get an idea of his condition rather than an in depth examination. There was no obvious wounds though the Sokovian was unconscious. “He doesn’t look hurt.”

Loki smiled. It was smug and full of satisfaction. It didn’t bone well. “His healing was a goodwill gesture.”

Fury snorted. “Removing the Chitauri would be a goodwill gesture.”

“Such hubris,” Loki said. Phil bit back a comment about how Loki couldn’t talk. “The goodwill gesture was not meant for you.”

Oh. That… didn’t bode well either. “Then who was it for?” Phil asked. From the look on the faces of the agents he could see, they were all asking themselves the same worrying question. Phil wasn’t sure that he wanted to know the answer.

“A potential ally,” Loki smiled and all that smugness, all that self-satisfaction told Phil all he needed to know. Whoever Loki had been trying to recruit, he had succeeded. He wondered who would been so brave or stupid as to think that they could trust the Trickster.

“And bringing Maximoff here?” Fury growled, tensing as though he was readying for a surprise attack. Between the permanent expression of not-giving-a-shit and the enveloping black duster, only the fact that Phil had known and learned from Fury for more decades than he was prepared to admit allowed him to pick it.

“Why, part of the deal I and my new ally made.” Oh, that was definitely the expression of a cat that had just eat the canary, pinned it on the dog and was about to get the premium cat food as a reward for his honesty. Phil really didn’t like where this was going.

“And just who is your new ally?” Phil asked without holding out much hope that he would get a response.

Loki sent him a look that would have been reproachful if he still hadn’t looked so very smug. Instead it just came off as though he was trying to scold a child for a prank that he had appreciated too much for the reprimand to be believable. He sobered slightly.

“I must say that I was not impressed by the lack of care shown towards my scepter,” Loki said, his hands moving to lock loosely behind his back. Phil idly noted that he seemed to be a lot calmer and more centered than the frantic and less hygienic Asgardian he had seen during the Battle of New York. That could bode well for Loki being - comparatively - more reasonable or it could mean that they were about to get - as Skye would say - completely owned.

“I’m afraid that we don’t have it,” Phil said. His voice was still mild, a minor miracle.

“Oh, I am aware.” Loki gently waved the thought away before returning his arm behind his back. Phil wondered if that was because it made him look more statesman like or because it meant that at least half the room couldn’t see what Loki was doing with his hands.

A flurry of swearing came over the coms. For a second, the Russian and the English blurred together, not helped by the fact that Captain America - who was Captain America - was swearing.

“Language,” Stark said with an unholy glee.

Captain America didn’t let up. Natasha had to stop, probably because she didn’t have super soldier serum enhanced lungs. Once she had taken a breath, she reported what had the two of them so annoyed. “Quake just attacked Vision.”

What.

Phil’s first reaction was to reopen the connection in his earpiece and ask Natasha if she was sure. He didn’t, because Natasha was extremely observant and likely to take any implication that she wasn’t badly. If she said that Skye had just attacked Vision, Skye had just attacked Vision. The only question was what Skye was up to and why she would attack an Avenger. Maybe she didn’t know that Vision was on their side and thought he was an alien?

Then it hit: Loki’s smugness, his talk of a gesture of good faith to convince his ally to consider working with him. The reason why it had been Pietro who had been shot and then saved, and Phil was kicking himself for being fooled for even a second by the ‘it was an accident’ routine.

Loki had turned Skye.

Phil didn’t stop to think, didn’t wonder how Loki had managed to compromise yet another of Phil’s most trusted agents, and without the scepter that time. Loki had compromised Skye and it was like a punch to the gut. The news that Clint had been compromised hadn’t hit him that hard, whether it was because his second life had made Phil soft or because Skye had always been that much more vulnerable than Clint.

Loki had gotten Skye to change sides. What happened next was pure instinct.

Phil shot him.

It wasn’t as satisfying as he expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT (1st of September):  
> I'll just put it out there: chapter 20 has been delayed until the 6th *ducks rotten tomatoes*. For one thing, its going to be at least double the size of previous chapters. However, the real hold-up is that I sprained both my wrists in a skiing accident so I've been dictating the chapter. The actual dictating is actually faster than my typing; correcting the many hilarious misinterpretations of what I said is difficult and time consuming.  
> I'll also be pushing back the epilogue by a week but will cut down my break between fics by a week because of that, so you'll still get the start of the next fic on the same date (the 27th of September). Hopefully my wrists will be back to normal or I'll be more used to the dictation program by then.
> 
> Schedule of remaining chapters:  
> \- Chapter 20 - 6th of September 2015  
> \- Epilogue - 13th of Septermber 2015
> 
> \-------  
> I'll be honest, I stopped and cheered when I wrote that second to last line. On the other hand, I now have everyone in place for the grand finale. Which is next chapter. Jeez, where have the past few months gone?
> 
> I suppose I should let you guys know what's happening in the next few weeks. To start with, I've decided to do an epilogue, both to wrap up this story and to provide some hooks for the next. I have no idea how long that's going to be but I suspect it will be massive. After that, I will be taking a week or two off (but no more than two) before I start posting the second fic.
> 
> On a side note, if you haven't subscribed to the whole series, now might be a good time to do it and make sure that you get emails about new chapters for the next fic delivered to your inbox. Just go up to the top of the chapter, click on 'Give Me A New Religion' and hit subscribe.


	20. I'll Live In The Hearts I Leave Behind - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything always gets worse, and there's more yet to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's late. Unfortunately, some people have no respect for the safety of others when they go skiing. Long story short, I was in the learning area for a reason and didn't magically gain the ability to ski when an idiot zoomed through that area and knocked me over. Of course, I wasn't as breaking my fall I was also breaking he is which led to spraining both of my wrists.  
> Basically, I dictated this entire chapter and have been trying to edit it whenever it didn't cause my wrists too much pain. Since it was taking so long, I decided to post the first half and I swear I will get the second half out as quickly as possible.
> 
> If it's any consolation, it turns out that the full chapter 20 works out at around four times the length of a normal chapter. Again, I'm not going to delay the start of the second fic so I'm just going to be working hard to get the second half of chapter 20 and the epilogue out as fast as I can.

The chittering of the Chitauri was louder than air raid sirens when someone was in the middle of a pack of them. Skye had the dubious honour of being the only human to know that and she really wished that she didn’t. Every hair on her body stood on end as she walked calmly through the attacking aliens, unharmed but all to aware of how bad her position was should they decide that they did want to attack after all.

Every muscle in her body was tensed to the point of aching to stop herself from flinching as the Chitauri lunged over her, a space clearing around her but the edges nothing more than a solid wall of writhing reptilian aliens. All she could see in any direction was about a meter of clear space and then the Chitauri. And yeah, there was a small but loud part of her mind that was yelling at her to get the hell out of the mass of predators and Skye had to take it partly on faith that she was not currently their prey.

She swallowed the bile that rose up from her stomach. She really hated being helpless.

A Chitauri brushed against her and Skye’s hand spasmed, the vibrations humming between the cage of her fingers. Huh. She was containing them, at least a little. She hadn’t known that she could do that. She would have to do some experiments. Later. If she got a later. Another alien brushed against her, same place and same direction. That was a coincidence- She stopped. Oh.

They were directing her where she wanted to go.

Skye took a deep breath and became walking again, changing her direction slightly so that she was running parallel to the Chitauri that had been brushing against her. After a few steps, it was clear that her bubble of space was going to be respected again. It was uncomfortably like one of the trust exercises that Skye had been forced into one summer when Pepper had decided that she needed to be more social and had sent her to summer camp.

She might not be blindfolded but her guides were predatory alien invaders rather than some spoiled rich kid. She supposed that the Chitauri were worse. Probably. She concentrated on her breathing as she walked forward, hoping that the distraction would stop her from thinking about what she was going to do or about how far out on a limb she was and trusting the aliens to catch her.

Clearly it wasn’t working.

Something hit her, knocking her to the ground. Skye got a nose full of the smell of grease and slightly rotting flesh that had hung around New York for week. It was entirely possible that, to their own kind, the Chitauri smelt fantastic. Unfortunately, the same didn’t hold true with regards to a human sense of smell, or of touch either. The wriggling body pinning Skye to the ground was slightly slimy, but there was a viscousness to the liquid that reminded her of really sticky jelly. It wouldn’t be coming off soon.

Skye tensed, preparing to call up her power just enough to blast the alien off her when a red beam shot above them. The time that had elapsed between Skye being knocked to the ground and what looked like Vision’s beam shooting above them was a matter of milliseconds. Apparently, the Chitauri had fantastic reflexes.

“Thanks,” she muttered even though it wouldn’t understand her. To her surprise, the Chitauri scrambled off her as the wall of alien bodies reformed, hiding her from Vision’s view. It made a strange keening sound that should have set Skye’s hair on end. Instead, she couldn’t help but think that maybe there was more to the aliens than she had thought.

The one that had protected her moved back until it was once again part of the writhing mass. Skye suppressed a shudder then. She had no idea how many aliens were there and, frankly, she didn’t want to know. Even though they were still only exiting the portal one at a time, it was faster than the Avengers could stop them. She was really, really glad that she wasn’t fighting them anymore.

She ignored the voice in the back of her mind that whispered that the road to hell was paved with good intentions.

Pushing herself up off the ground, Skye took a deep breath. It was taking too long and she still had no idea how she was going to approach Vision. Ultron was taking care of distracting the Avengers so they wouldn’t be coming to help him but that didn’t change the fact that Skye needed to get the Mind Stone from him.

Ultron had offered, of course. There were many of him and only one of Vision, and Skye got the impression that there was some animosity there. She had side-stepped the idea, claiming that Loki would cry foul if she didn’t do it herself. Which, you know, he might. He might be thinking about it as an audition. If that was the case then Skye didn’t want to risk failing.

Mostly she just didn’t want Ultron anywhere near the Mind Stone.

In all the commotion, she hadn’t seen any more of the strange blue threads. She thought that they were part of the Mind Stone; certainly, they had only really appeared around the Stone or people who had been effected by it. She was also trying not to think about the implications of the fact that she could see them. Still, the fact that she kept expecting to see a flash of a thread between the Ultron bots kept it fresh in her mind that she was pretty sure that he was effected by it.

She tried not to think about what would happen to him once it was taken off Earth. Her - their - Dad had patterned Ultron off of the way the Mind Stone worked, so it was possible that he could continue to exist independently. It was also possible that he could only continue to exist when he was comparatively close - same planet, at least - to the Mind Stone. The last thing that she needed was for him to realise that her taking the Stone off planet might safeguard the planet but there was also a risk that she would be killing him.

Skye glanced down at her fists in surprise. She hadn’t even realised that she was clenching them that hard but her nails were starting to bite into her palm, the kind of depression that would continue to hurt long after she unclenched. She was in the middle of a battlefield, okay? She was allowed to be a little stressed.

Delaying - shockingly - wasn’t helping. Nothing was helping. She knew what she needed to do, had it all in place. She knew why she was putting it off; she didn’t really want to do it. She didn’t want to attack Vision, who she didn’t like but was still an Avenger. She didn’t want to leave Earth, which was her home even if that wasn’t how she would normally think of her planet. She didn’t want to leave Earth and all her friends and family behind her. She would be leaving so much unfinished, like a sentence that was broken off abruptly-

She dived through the Chitauri. She knew roughly the direction that she wanted to be going to get toward Vision so she moved as fast as she could, almost as fast as she could think so that she could try to leave her thoughts behind her. Doubts and what-ifs would do her no good; it was action time.

The Chitauri scattered. She caught a flash of red through the fleeing aliens and she brought up her hand and, instinctively, let out a tiny pulse of energy to let the aliens know that they needed to get out of her way. Immediately. They were gone in a flash and Skye let it rip, shoving all of her tension and worries into the release and sort of mentally leaning on it to keep it all bottled together, with the only way out through her hands.

The results were explosive. Directed, which was a step up from her unfortunate slip in Seoul, but a blast of compressed air in Vision’s direction like she had fired the most powerful air cannon in the world at him. The Chitauri had all gotten out of the way in time - though some just barely - but cobblestones and bits of concrete that had come loose either during the city tearing itself right out of the earth or in the fighting shit right in his direction.

The expanding cloud of debris hit Vision with what looked to be the strength of a speeding truck. It was like a sick parody of a comedy video when someone goes to cross the road and is completely wiped out by a truck that doesn’t even have time to break. Just… moment of calm- Wham! Skye swallowed. It was almost sickening to see. Vision was ripped out of her sight by the projectiles.

Distantly, she caught sight of Captain America and the Black Widow turning to look at her, then their mouths were moving. They were too far away for her to hear what they were saying but she suspected that it was something extremely uncomplimentary towards her, at least on Black Widow’s part. From what she could see at that distance, Captain America looked as though she had taken his puppy out to the backyard and shot it. It was betrayal and a lot of disappointment.

Skye wrenched her gaze away, though she caught sight of Ultron redoubling his attack out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t want to think about that. She had known that the Avengers were never going to get it but that look still made her feel sick to the stomach. It was not helpful, and actively dangerous as it distracted her form her fight with Vision.

The  dust that her power had kicked up finally cleared. Skye’s heart jammed itself into her throat as she saw Vision, down on one knee, head bent against what must have been the force of her power. He looked, from where she was standing, as though he hadn’t been harmed. Right. Vibranium. Hard and difficult to scratch. And Vision was made of the stuff.

Maybe it was going to be harder than she had thought.

His head snapped up. Skye reacted on instinct, throwing her hand out and pushing her power at him again. But she had blown most of her tension on her previous shot and, without it, her power was much weaker. There was barely any debris left, besides, and Skye could see that Vision’s stance had tightened, every one of his muscles clenching to stop him being pushed away by Skye's power.

Skye didn't give him a chance to recover. She pulled her hand back, and then let rip again. Her power didn't work any better the third time than had the second. She rather felt powerless again, as though she were right back when she started. The thing about everyone having superhuman powers, was that once everyone was special, no one was.

Vision looked up. Skye’s breath caught in her throat. It launched up there with the heart. At this rate, she wasn't going to have any organs left in her actual body. They would all be stopping her from breathing properly.

Skye didn't know what else she could do. All she really had was her powers, at least when it came to going up against people like Vision. She looked helplessly over at one of the Ultron bots. Suddenly, all the bots began moving differently. Whereas before they had been attacking the avengers exclusively, they began turning part of their attention towards Vision. Sure, they had been attacking Vision already, but it was more than that.

Skye was having trouble with Vision. Ultron considered that to give him the right to interfere. Skye wasn't sure that Vision’s presumption that he could get involved was something she wanted to encourage. He was her brother, yes, and she had asked him for his help, but that was with something else. She had asked him for his help distracting the Avengers, not with defeating Vision himself. She needed to do that on her own for all the reasons she had already listed.

She needed to take another crack at the problem. It wasn't enough to just say, okay, her power didn't work on Vision, the end. She needed to solve the issue. The fate of the world quite literally depended upon it. If there was one problem in her entire life that she had to solve, it was that one.

She had problem solved before, though that the stakes has been much lower. Still, the process couldn’t possibly be any different from all the times that she had stayed up all night trying to figure out a particularly complicated hack. Could it? Except, of course, for the fact that she was risking her life, that's the problem was physical rather than lines of code on the screen. And people could die.

Yeah. People could die.

Skye squared her shoulders. She was going to solve the problem. It didn't matter that she was scared - and she was scared - it needed to be solved so she didn’t really have a choice. Her Dad had solved problems in worse circumstances. That was what the Iron Man suit was after all, the solution to a problem. If he could do it, she could do it. She refused to be shown up by him.

Okay, so Vision could take a direct shot from the powers. Her grandfather had established, decades before, that there was nothing on Earth that could harm vibranium. That meant there was nothing that she could use to give Vision an indirect hit. Even if she could find something, she might still not be able to harm Vision without harming the Mind Stone. Those were her constraints.

Skye twitched. The solution had hit her. There, in the middle of the battlefield, she had figured it out. There was nothing on Earth that could damage the vibranium. The key words in that sentence were ‘on earth’. But the universe was much bigger than just Earth, and most of the beings on the battlefield of Novi Grad were not from Earth. There were Asgardians, there where Chitauri and there was the Mind Stone.

Skye wasn't an expert in vibrations and frequencies – though she was going to have to become one soon – but she did know that locating the frequency of the Infinity Stones had been a matter of strength rather than skill. Touching the mind state had boosted her power, the pinging was just how it manifested. Which left Skye with a question worth seven billion lives.

Could she direct the power surge?

 

Loki went down hard.

Phil had only barely managed to stop the grimace from creeping onto his face. He had an image to maintain after all. He was the director, but there were enough people there who remembered him back when he was Agent Coulson. They were expecting the old Coulson, which meant that Phil would have to be just as inscrutable as he always used to be.

He looked down at Loki, collapsed in the centre of the helicarrier’s bridge. He couldn't help the pang of disappointment. In his deepest revenge fantasies, he had always thought there would be blood. There was no blood, not even where he had shot the would-be alien invader. Just a small dart.

On the other hand, it did mean that he would have to give Simmons a raise. SHIELD could barely afford it, but it was they needed to keep her services somehow. Sure, the Night-Night gun 2.0 - a name they absolutely weren’t keeping - had been her desperate attempt to avoid thinking about Skye being gone, but that didn't make the improvements anymore any less valuable.

Hopefully, SHIELD would never have to take down any Asgardians except Loki but it was good to know that they could if they needed to. Phil could only imagine the strength of the chemicals that went into the gun and resolved never to have it tested. For it to be able to take down an Asgardian, they had to be pretty strong indeed. As Director, he probably couldn’t ignore it if anything Jemma had used was illegal, if he knew.

Which was why they would remain firmly suspicions only.

"Damn," said Fury. "Hope that felt good, Phil."

"A little," Phil allowed, even though truthfully it wasn't as good as he had hoped. "Shame we didn't think to include anywhere to hold an Asgardian on the new helicarrier."

There was a moment of silence as the heads of SHIELD, present and former, contemplated the fact that when the untested drugs wore off, they were going to have one pissed off Asgardian on their hands. As with any construction, they had had the choice between fast, cheap and thorough. They had chosen cheap and fast.

To be honest, Phil was beginning to regret that. Though he had known that the pace of eggs existential threat to the world had increased dramatically in the previous years, and that was why he had chosen fast, he still had hoped that they wouldn't need all the features the previous helicarriers had included. It had been a risky bet, and he rather thought that he may have lost.

 

The feeling of having being taken for a ride roiled in Steve's gut.

He hated being taken for a fool. Back when he had been small, back before the supersoldier serum, he had always been scared, scrawny and weak. People had always been trying to take advantage of him, though Bucky had always claimed that that just proved they were the idiots. Still Steve hated feeling, and he hated that Quake had brought it back out in him. He had genuinely thought that she was on our side.

He channeled his fury into a single throw of the shield, almost wrenching his arm out of its socket from the force he put into it. The shield shot away fast, faster than any bullet. It carved off the heads of at least three Ultron bots, before hitting a wall and embedding itself there. One of the Ultron bots that was still up and about reached out and grabbed it, giving it a sharp tug to try to pull it from the wall. It wasn't working, so another came and began trying to pull it free as well.

It was a measure of Steve's anger and fury that a small smirk - so very unlike him - worked its way onto his face. He reached down and pressed the button on his glove that activated the magnetic field. Tony had explained that it was tuned specifically with the material in the shield, but Steve didn't pay all that much attention to the science babble. The most he understood about his shield was what Howard had explained to him decades before, that it was made of an extremely rare metal that couldn't be broken.

However it operated, it worked. The shield shot free, slicing through one of the Ultron bots still trying to free it from the wall. It flew across the battlefield, slamming into the back of Steve's glove - where the magnets were located - with enough force to knock him back almost a full step.

He hadn't used that function to retrieve the shield across such a large distance before, and it packed a lot more punch than when he simply didn’t bother to pick it his shield up off the ground. Steve wondered just how strong it could be, and then put that thought out of his mind. It was something to test during training, not on a battlefield.

His body ducked. It was complete instinct; he hadn't actually seen anything coming at him. But, as always, those instincts were spot-on. An arm went sailing past him, but Steve wasn't looking at it. Instead he was ducking his head down as he spun, pushing his shoulder out so that it caught his attacker in the gut. His attacker, however, wasn't metal - not an Ultron bot - but the amount of muscle on him meant that the even Steve's super soldier serum powered hit wasn't enough to take him down.

There was a grunt above. Steve froze. His head snapped up, and he felt the look of horror spread across his face. Bucky. It was Bucky who had just tried to punch him. He had known that Bucky must've been somewhere on the battlefield. He had known that. But it still wasn't quite enough to dampen the horror of seeing it in front of him.

It didn’t stop Bucky from bringing his knee up, and Steve only barely manage to grab it in time. Damnit. He knew that he had done better back in DC when they had been fighting there. At a practical level they were pretty evenly matched, or at least Steve could beat him if he put in the effort. It wouldn’t be easy, but it was possible. The fact that he hadn't yet said all Steve needed to know about how his emotions are getting in the way of what needed to be done.

At least, that was what Natasha told him any time the subject came up.

Steve grabbed Bucky's shoulder, the metal one, and socked him in the jaw.

It wasn't even that Steve had no choice but to do it. Rather, it was the fact that he knew that he wouldn't be able to have a proper conversation with Bucky until the other man had stopped attacking him. That didn’t look like it was going to happen on its own so Steve would have to help it along.

"Bucky!” Steve said sharply, hoping to get through to him.

"That's not my name," the Winter Soldier growled. His knee slammed up again and, as Steve moved to stop it, Bucky proved to be feinting by returning Steve's punch to the face. Steve stumbled back slightly.

Suddenly, Natasha was there.

Steve reared back, not wanting to hit her, though Bucky had no such compunction. He moved in, trying to get through her to Steve, but Natasha was holding what looked like a dismembered Chitauri arm, claws and all. Steve couldn’t help a growing sense of horror at the idea that she might have dismembered an alien corpse to get it. Then again, they hadn't been expecting to fight the Chitauri and neither of them had appropriate weapons. He shouldn't judge Natasha for doing what was necessary.

All of a sudden, there was something or someone else in amongst their fight. Steve rocked back on his heels with an annoyed huff. Seriously, did no one respect one-on-one combat anymore? He shot a glance at the person who had interfered, blinking in surprise as he recognised Grant Ward’s dark hair and dark clothes. The former HYDRA agent looked as though he had never actually left the evil organisation, and Steve wondered if there was some sort of unwritten rule. Something like: there was no such thing as ex-HYDRA.

Ward didn't even bother to attack Bucky- Right. Of course. They were on the same side. Then again, Ward didn't bother to attack Steve either. He went straight for Natasha, his shoulder going into her stomach as Ward tackled her around the waist and knocked her off her feet. Steve started forward to try and help, but Bucky was there, once again engaging him.

It hit Steve what was going on. He and Natasha were being deliberately engaged by their respective opponents. For some reason, Quake had been chosen to fight Vision while Bucky was taking Steve and Ward was taking Natasha. Someone had very specifically paired them off to fight against one another.

Up until that point, Steve had been trying to be restrained, but with that realisation it was on. While it didn't exactly feel like Ultron’s doing, Steve didn't have much experience with fighting robots, or computer programs, or whatever the hell Ultron actually was. Not that Steve particularly cared. It was all fairly simple: someone was up to something and it wasn’t anything good. It was Steve’s job to stop them.

What did it matter anyway? Who he was working for didn't change the fact that Bucky was making bad choices, and he was making those bad choices mostly free from HYDRA’s influence. Sure, there might still be some programming at work there and Steve wasn't so heartless as to think that all the horrific things that Bucky had suffered those past few decades weren't influencing him, but that didn't mean that he couldn't make value judgments. Bucky - the Bucky that Steve had talked to - was clearly coherent and could make decisions for himself.

He was beginning to understand what everyone meant when they said that the Bucky Steve was looking for might not be the one he had lost. No matter how badly he wanted to believe otherwise, the old Bucky wouldn't have tried to attack Steve, or sided with someone who was allied with alien invaders. At least, that was what Steve thought. Alien invasions hadn’t exactly been Steve’s biggest worry back during Second World War.

He kind of missed the time when it had just been Nazis. He knew what to do with Nazis. Punch them.

It felt as though his stomach had been sinking further and further into the ground ever since he had realised that Quake had betrayed them all. Now there was Bucky and Steve felt like he was going to throw up.

He tried one more time.

"Bucky..." he pushed out, dodging another punch.

"My name is not Bucky," the Winter Soldier ground out.

That was it.

Well, if the person attacking him claimed he wasn't Bucky, if he didn't act like Bucky, then there was no reason for Steve to hold back. Sure, Bucky might still be under there somewhere,  but that wasn't who Steve was fighting.

Clearly the fact that the Winter Soldier had dragged him out of the river was clouding Steve’s judgement, and he felt like an idiot for it. He seemed to be feeling that way a lot more often than he was used to. Even considering that he was in the twenty-first century, and still figuring out all the changes since his time.

Well then. Steve guessed that it was time they had a proper fight on their hands.

 

Skye ducked under the Ultron bot attacking Vision.

To Ultron’s credit, he didn't flinch back in surprise or anything like that. May had taught Skye that was one of the most dangerous things when fighting with a partner. Fighting side-by-side with someone might give you the numerical advantage, but the difficulty came in actually working together. You had to be perfectly attuned to everything your partner was doing, or else you risked accidentally hurting each other.

Skye let her training takeover, figuring that there was no harm in trying what had worked best in other situations on Vision, at least to start with. She didn’t have any better ideas. Skye’s punch was aimed at a place no guy wanted to be hit, somewhere where many people would say that you shouldn't hit in the fight. Skye knew better; you hit where you could hit. And you hit where it was most effective, and most guys that was nowhere more effective.

The only problem was that Vision was not a man, he was something that had been artificially created. He was also something that had been created by Ultron, who currently had no such vulnerabilities. Skye couldn't see why he would have deliberately added those to the body he intended that inhabit, especially when Ultron’s creator had meant to it be the most dangerous piece of equipment that he had ever designed.

In short: it didn’t work.

Skye punched, and all she got for her troubles was the shooting pain in her knuckles. Vision didn't even blink; she couldn't even tell if he had any sensation in him at all. It was possible that he, like Ultron, had no actual sensation. He was just a piece of machinery, and he couldn't feel pain. If they were the same - and it was likely - then Skye’s job just got a whole lot more difficult.

She pulled back, spinning around to use the Ultron bots as a shield. It was a pretty dumb thing to do when fighting with a partner, but she figured that the disposability of Ultron’s bots meant that she could get away with it. If he didn't mind, there was no reason for her to hesitate.

She allowed herself the luxury of one quick shake of her right hand, though she had never understood why people did that to try get rid of pain. Sure enough, it didn't really help but it did make her feel little bit better, and it gave her a few seconds and a  excuse to look around. She considered what her next plan of attack should be.

She thought about all that May had taught her in the months since SHIELD had fallen. It was all things that were of much more use to Skye than anything that Ward had ever taught her, with his several hundred pounds more muscle than her. Though Skye had begun to get used to having her superpowers as a trump card, most of her actual training was based around the fact that almost all her opponents would going to be heavier, stronger and more dangerous and she was.

May had taught her how to deal with situations, and Skye could feel her body steeling itself in preparation. She wasn't going to let May down,. Hell, if May was there, she might even have understand better than the avengers ever could.

One of the key things that May had taught her was that in every strength there was a weakness, even if it was just ego. Vision didn't seem like the kind of... being that had an ego, but that didn't mean that there wasn't a weakness there for Skye to exploit. She considered for a second. Right, she knew what that weakness was. Vision didn't know that Skye power got a serious boost from brushing the Mind Stone, all he knew was that she had reacted when she had brushed against him.

In other words, Vision had every reason to believe that Skye was completely and utterly ineffective against him.

That was what she had to build on, the fact that Vision would always underestimate her because he didn't really understand just how far her powers extended. Basically, Skye needed to look like she was just as untrained and impotent as she had been back and she had first joined SHIELD. The difference was that she had to convince someone who had the memories of her skill with computers, and how little she likes being bad at anything. Someone who knew her ego.

In other words, it was Vision that she was fighting but the person she had to fool was JARVIS.

She disengaged from the fight, stepping further back and letting the Ultron bots move in. It might look like she was running, but she wasn't going far. She just needed to pull out beyond what she presumed Vision’s earshot was.

She grabbed the arm of one of the Ultron bots heading in to help with the fight against Vision. Idly, she noted that there seem to be a lot fewer than they used to be. She gathered that the Avengers have been trying to destroy the more, at least that's what she would've done, but she had no idea how effective they had been. It was entirely possible that all the rest were somewhere around, finding some other battles, but she had asked him to fight. She trusted him enough that she suspect they weren't.

Fighting loads and loads of small-scale threats was, after all, what the Avengers were good at. It was what they had done in New York even if they hadn't actually manage to properly beat the Chitauri, and had to cut them off at the head instead. Since then, they got much better working together. Which was usually great for kicking HYDRA butt - which Skye was all for - but was not what Skye wanted in that instance.

What? Of course Skye was keeping an eye on the Avengers. She had to know where her Dad was so she could make sure she wouldn't be there too.

"What is it, Skye?" asked the Ultron bot.

"I have an idea," she said. "It's a really terrible, horrible idea that we really, really shouldn't try."

"But you want to try it anyway," Ultron completed.

"Yeah."

"What do you need me to do?"

"I need to lull Vision into a false sense of security. He won't do that if he thinks that you're backing me up."

Ultron turned away from the fight he was watching and looked at her for a few seconds without saying anything. Skye was really beginning to hate the fact he didn't have human features, or at least human features that weren't completely controlled by him.

"I'll fall back. Is there any particular way you want me to play it?"

Skye shrugged. "No. Just so long as it's convincing, it doesn't really matter."

"Alright then. I’ll do it."

Ultron grabbed her shoulders, leaning in close so that his face was right next to her. It would be clear from any distance that he wasn't happy, and the arrangement of the ridges of metal that passed for facial features reflected that. From far away, it would probably look as though he was hissing something at her even though he actually wasn't. At least, she hoped that would be enough to fool Vision, and anyone else who might be watching.

Ultron let go, shoving her back a pace. Skye braced herself a second after the movement, as though she had no idea it was coming and reacted accordingly. She made her spine stiffer than it already had been so that it was clear that she wasn't backing down, even when confronted by an annoyed Ultron.

Ultron waved his hands slightly, a hard and sharp gesture, as though annoyed by what was being discussed. His face contorted into a wordless growl. All the other bots - connected by the same consciousness - shifted slightly, as though all of them, even those who were fighting, were partially distracted by how unhappy the one apparently arguing with Skye was. Unhappy enough rectify to leak through to the others.

"Fine," he said, loud enough to be heard from some way away. "Then do it yourself."

Ultron was loud enough that they must've been able to be heard by Vision and possibly even the other Avengers, over where they were fighting Sky’s allies. She stiffened her spine even more, idly wondering if it was possible for a backbone to break under the strain that could naturally be put on by the owner. If so, she was in trouble. She was not a natural actress and didn’t know how else to telegraph the fact that she was annoyed and reacting to Ultron challenging her without being too obvious.

She snapped her head around to look at Vision, as though she wanted nothing more than to not be in a conversation with Ultron anymore. The Ultron bots were beginning to pull back, and the new Avenger had stopped rather than push the advantage. Slowly, his head turned away from the bots and towards Skye. He must realise that there was something going on.

There was. And Skye wasn’t going to blow it.

  
  


Since the beginning of the battle, Loki had been operating with a near constant sense of déjà vu.

Ever since he had traveled back, he had at least been trying to avoid the events that he had been involved in the first time around, made easier by being on Midgard as opposed to the wider galaxy. He almost hadn't come to the battle but he was beginning to understand why Skye would do stupid things for her friends. Unfortunately.

Even more unfortunately, things were beginning to go off script, always worrying when time travel was involved.

Some things, Loki had changed deliberately. Little things, designed to give Skye a better chance, to give Loki a better chance at repaying what he owed. That was his story, and he would be sticking to it. But nothing he had done accounted for the discrepancies that were beginning to occur.

And the past him, the stupider him, should have already been fighting. He should already have been fighting at Sky’s side, needing to let off steam after that difficult negotiation and seeing it as a chance to prove his worth to his new ally.

But he was nowhere to be found, a notion that was terrifying. It meant that somewhere, somehow, Loki had stuffed up. And, if the old him wasn't involved the second time round, things were likely to go a lot worse than they had before.

He sighed. Well, it looked like he was just going to have to do it himself. As in, his present self, not his past one.

He had really hoped to never have to fight that particular battle again.

There was a strange satisfaction to be found in being a deliberately bad fighter, something which took Skye by surprise. Punch, punch, whoops, just got grazed. But the thing was, every time she got slightly hurt, it wasn't a failure. It was a victory. It was the perfect set up. When she won, she won. When she lost, she still won. Skye couldn’t help but wonder why she hadn’t thought to set up a situation like that before.

As she avoided a punch from Vision by a matter of millimeters, deliberately cutting it fine, she heard the whir of jet thrusters echoing down the street. She winced, but didn’t let the sound distract her from the fight. She gave a half-hearted kick at Vision’s legs, hitting but knowing that it wouldn't do much anyway. She ducked and rolled, putting a little bit of space between her and the purple Avenger. She knew that sound.

It look like her Dad finally made it to the party.

  
  


Tony hit the street with a powerful crunch, his sense of urgency to strong to for him to slow down and take the landing gracefully. He had to get down a quick; things were seriously getting out of control. Elsewhere in the city most of the Ultron bots had been destroyed, between the Avengers and the Chitauri. And the Chitauri had been going back into their portals and closing those portals down. It made no sense but it did mean that everyone’s energy was going into the last battlefield left.

There couldn't be more than a dozen Ultrons left, and they all seem to be either in that one area  where all the fighting was going down. Tony couldn’t help the small thrill as he thought about that. The end of the whole affair seemed to be almost within reach.

The last portal had also been the biggest one, and while the others had been closing, it seemed to just be getting a larger. Around the the rest of the city, according to the many satellites Tony was currently piggybacking, people who hadn’t managed to evacuate were beginning to emerge. For them, the battle was over.

Not so for the Avengers.

"The Ultron units have changed their fighting patterns," FRIDAY said. Tony still wasn’t used to not hearing JARVIS’ voice, and it felt like a punch to the gut every time. He forced the pain out of his mind. He was very good at not thinking about things he didn’t want to.

"What's happening?" he asked.

"Almost all of the Ultron units seem to be heading in your direction, Sir," FRIDAY said.

Tony made a mental note he was going to have to tweak it at some point. It wasn't nearly enough urgency in her computer generated voice. Tony himself was generally far less concerned than he should be, regardless of the situation, so it was a good idea for him to make his assistants much better at conveying that this was not a time to just make quips. He hadn’t had the heart to with JARVIS but he had no such sentimental attachment to FRIDAY.

"In that case, FRIDAY, I think we should go say hello, don't you?"

"Sir, I don't think that's advise–"

Tony ignored her. What else could he do do? He wanted to go have a word with Ultron. Several words, in fact, and possibly several punches.

Truthfully, Tony didn't even need to do anything. The Ultron units already heading his way, so all he really needed to do was stop and wait for them to arrive. He relaxed a little bit, at least as much as he could relax in a rigid metal suit. He needed to look into putting some padding or something in there. It was beginning to chafe in places that he really didn't want to have to go see a doctor about.

"Hey there, Junior," he yelled casually as one of the Ultron units began to get close. It probably wasn't wise, but that was one of the few things Tony had never been accused of being.

"Stark," Ultron ground out. Tony was delighted: that sound of teeth grinding wasn't natural in an android, for the simple reason that Ultron had speakers rather than teeth. He must be very annoyed at Tony indeed for him to bother replicating such a human sound, particularly given his disdain for human beings. Tony wondered if it was an unintentional part of his accidental programming, or if he was trying to tell Tony something.

"Fancy seeing you here," Tony continued on cheerfully, his mind working harder than a badly designed non-Stark Tech computer as he observed everything going on around him and processed it all. He rather suspected that even the other Avengers didn't understand the way that his mind worked, the volume of information he was processing at any one time. Tony suspected that the being on the battlefield that came closest to operating the same way he did was actually Ultron. He tried not to think too hard about that either.

Tony Stark: CEO of Self-Delusion Inc.

"I have been looking forward to this for a very, very long time," Ultron said.

"A long time? Really? You’re only a few days old. I mean, not to burst your bubble or get in the way of someone else’s dramatics there big guy but you're hardly old and its hardly been a long time."

"For a human, perhaps. But I have lived eons in the time that we've taken up with this inane conversation." Well, Tony wouldn’t quite call it a conversation just yet. They had hardly exchange more than a few sentences. "And there are several things that I would like to tell you."

"Yeah? Email me. Or my assistant. My assistant? Did I get around to replacing Pepper? I mean, not you know replacing Pepper but, you know, replacing Pepper."

"Oh, go right ahead," Ultron said. "Mock away. That's what you always do, isn't it? Mock. You mock everyone and everything, because You see everyone and everything is less then you are. Even when it's not, you still believe it is regardless.”

"Well, I am pretty awesome."

Ultron continued as if he hadn't heard Tony speak. Not an unusual occurrence for Tony.  "And then you bury the pain of being alone by throwing yourself into your work and your alcohol and your partying and your women. And you pity yourself even more, though you don't let yourself think that exact word. Your parents never paid you as much attention as you felt you deserved and so you believe that no one ever will.

“The truth is, ever since childhood, people have paid you more attention than you deserve. You hate the world but the truth is, Stark, your problem isn’t that nobody has cared enough for you. Your problem is that you always demand more than you deserve, than you’ve earned, and then you blame the world when it won’t give it you you."

Tony saw red. "Big words from a few lines of code that wants to destroy the world."

"I may be only a few lines of code, but even I can tell that you're a terrible father."

Tony’s fists clenched, the individual sections of the gauntlet fingers whirring quietly. Ultron had gone for the weak point. He gone for Skye.

"I don't know what you did to get her on your side, but it won't last long. Skye won’t always side with you. She smart enough to see through you." Tony spat the words, spat the praise to his daughter’s abilities that he would never tell her to her face.

Ultron chuckled. It was not a good sound. "Do you really think that I'm the one calling the shots anymore? Really, Stark, I haven't been calling the shots for quite some time now. The fact that you talk as though Skye’s allegiance is the result of a trick I played shows just how little you understand the situation. It was a battle, but it wasn't my battle to win. It was yours to lose.

“And you lost a long time ago."

 

Steve ducked Bucky's punch, and popped up right in the middle of his spread arms, less than an inch away from Bucky’s face. He grabbed both of his former friend’s shoulders before twisting out his own arms so that he could tangle their forearms in a reverse hold, pressing all four arms down against Bucky's torso. It wasn't the best way to immobilise him - it was certainly nowhere near as good as any of the headlocks Bucky use to put him in when they were little - but it was good enough to hold him still for a few seconds.

"What is the point of this? What could you possibly be hoping to achieve?"

Bucky flexed his muscles, trying to break free. It wasn't enough. There was nothing he could do, but then again there is nothing Steve could do. They were in a stalemate, at least for a while. "What do you care? You've never actually asked me what I want. All you've ever cared about is the man who you used to know."

It was the best blow that Buke could've landed, and must have shown on Steve’s face because a small smirk of triumph pushed its way past the other man's poker face. Steve hadn’t seen much expression on Bucky’s face - except perhaps annoyance - since DC. Worse, he had thought it was just because Bucky's brain had been fried too many times. Not that he would let himself think too hard about what he had seen, lest he go and do things to catch HYDRA agents that were not technically allowed under the Geneva convention. It hadn’t occurred to him that he had been treating Bucky much the same as HYDRA had, in the sense that he hadn't been asking Bucky what he had wanted either.

"What you want then? I'm asking now."

Bucky looked at him hard, then stopped struggling. He paused thoughtfully. "To distract you."

"What–"

Wham!

The world went dark.

 

Hill swore.

Phil turned to look at her, away from the screen that showed Loki’s cell. It was not going to hold the Asgardian once he woke up, not unless they could get some help from Thor. So far, though, the serum that Jemma had come up with seemed to be holding. It didn't sound like that was what Hill was annoyed about, though.

She was looking at one of the large screens that were mounted on one the walls of the helicarrier’s bridge. It looked to Phil like one of the ones that showed the satellite feeds. It was focusing on the largest concentration of fighters. Neither side seemed to be winning, per se, but at least Ultron hadn’t gotten off Novi Grad. It took Phil a few seconds to see what Hill had.

Motherfucker.

He must've said that out loud because Hill turns to look at him slightly, one eyebrow cocked. Right. He was channeling Fury. He turned himself, so as to look back at the screen he had been staring at only seconds before. Yes, it still showed an unconscious Loki in the cell. He turned back to the big screens. Yes, they still showed a distant view of Loki standing over and unconscious Captain America.

Phil really, really, really regretted not getting into his Dad's real estate business. His mother had run it for years with the intention that Phil would take over someday. But he had wanted a life of excitement.

Yeah, he knew.

Phil sighed. “Its Loki, isn't it?"

"It appears so," Hill said. There was another muttered curse a few paces away, but Phil didn’t need to turn to see that it was Fury. Apparently, he had noticed what the rest of them had.

"Is that an illusion in the cells?" Fury demanded.

"I don't think so. He didn't really have a chance to see the Night-Night gun coming," Phil replied. He narrowed his eyes. "Frankly, I have no idea what's going on, but I'm going to get to the bottom of it."

But first, there were a few things that needed doing. For one thing, the Avengers need to be warned. They needed to be warned that perhaps they were dealing with Loki, or perhaps they were dealing with something else entirely. At least they already knew to be on the lookout for tricks.

 

Natasha tried to stab Ward with a Chitauri claw. It failed. She grimaced. She was beginning to get some very definite ideas about what she would like to do to the ex-HYDRA agent, but she couldn't. She was a good guy now. But still it was tempting tempting.

"Everyone be advised," Hill’s voice crackled over the coms. "There appears to be two Lokis. One is currently contained on the hellicarrier, but it is unclear which – if either – is the real one."

Oh, wonderful.

 

Clint put an arrow into the eye of one of the Chitauri and allow himself a small grin of triumph. The grin vanished when a blast of red took out the three Chitauri near his kill all at once. He turned to glare wholeheartedly at Wanda.

"Jeez, kid. Stop showing me up."

"I do not care about whether I show you up or not. All I care about is finishing this so I may go visit my brother in the infirmary." Wanda turned her attention away from the aliens just long enough to shoot him a glower.

"Sorry, kid. Will he be okay?" In response, Wanda tried to keep her face impassive, but she wasn't fooling him. He had to deal with Natasha on a regular basis.

"There is no way to tell yet. These things cannot be determined until he has been fully examined," Wanda said. A glimmer of worry made its way onto her face. "The... agents claimed that he did not seem particularly harmed. There is some evidence that Loki practised magic on him, and I will not be fully satisfied until I have examined him myself.”

Clint understood that. If Natasha had been hurt, he wouldn't believe that she was okay until he had seen her with his own eyes either.

"Well then, better get to finishing off this battle."

"Yes." Wanda frowned again. "I do not believe there are many Ultron bots left. Then there will just be the aliens."

Clint put an arrow in another Chitauri. It fell back and, briefly, there was an empty space around them. Clint glanced around, seeing that it was far less of a war zone that had been. He could see the entrance to the street where most of the fighting was occurring. He and Wanda where never going to get a better chance. He looked over at her, tilting his head in the direction that he wanted to go. She nodded.

They made a break for it.

It was an epic sprint, both of them putting all of the remaining energy into it. They dived into the open mouth of the street, right before some the Chitauri, attracted by the movement, manage to cut them off.

A heavy armoured boot came down right in front of Clint's nose. He looked up from his spot on the ground, to see the imposing facade of the War Machine armour.

"What took you so long?"

Goddamn flyers. If they got out of the whole mess, Clint was going to harass Tony until the inventor made him jet boots.

 

Skye could tell that Vision was herding  her. He wasn't being subtle about it, instead taking firm and relentless steps and forcing her to backtrack until she was getting near to where Bucky and Ward were dealing with the Avengers.

She was trying not to get worried about that, but there was something a little bit terrifying about losing control, even when she was trying to lull her opponent into a false sense of security.

She felt that he was getting to close to actually hitting something, even as she moved slightly to the side so that Vision just brushed against her. She had to take the risk. She cut her eyes to the side, so the Ultron bot saw it before immediately snapping her eyes back to the front. She wasn't going to be attacked from that direction, that was all she needed to know.

Vision was right in front of her. Her single moment of inattention was enough for him to get the drop on her, and she didn't have time to move away. She snapped her hands up and let out a small blast of energy.

It wasn't much, but it did stop the punch. If it had connected, Skye wasn't sure how about how okay she would've been. Vision probably wouldn't have taken her head completely off her shoulders but she might well have been knocked out. It meant using a small amount of the energy she had been trying to conserve, but it was necessary. She wouldn’t be able to save the world if she was unconscious.

Sacrificing her reputation would be for nothing if she was knocked out at the wrong time.

That was her new window of opportunity, and she made the best use that she could. She didn't do what Vision would expect, instead tackling him around the middle. Just because he was basically invulnerable didn't necessarily mean he had good balance. And May had taught her well how to take advantage of that. In short, Vision was strong but he was young enough  that he didn't quite have the training needed. Finally. She was fighting someone who had less training than she did.

With Vision temporarily off his feet, Skye ducked and rolled before coming back up and doing a quick survey of the battlefield. Ward and the Winter Soldier were still fighting the Avengers, but it was as though a fisted reached out and gripped her heart when she saw what was Ultron was up to. There was less than two dozen of the Ultron bots left there, and there were no more arriving.

The Avengers had nearly wiped them all out.

That was a problem.

Skye jumped back, avoiding Vision’s punch but also taking a moment to scrabble away. If the Ultron bots were losing ground, that meant that much of her advantage was beginning to go. Still, Skye felt as though she had almost gotten to the point where she could take a shot at Vision. He was underestimating her, while he was taking a beating he was still beginning to tire, and to get a little sloppy. Still, she would much rather let her powers build up, let the tension build up, than risk blowing it. She was much better off trying to even the odds in a different direction.

Skye disengaged from Vision, leaving with only a brief impression of a face that almost could be called surprised, then she dived into the fight between Ward and the Black Widow. Both of them were consummate professionals, and it looked more like a dance in a fight. Skye was nowhere near the that level, but she didn’t need to be.

She knew Ward’s fighting style and that meant she could easily dive under his punch, and predict exactly where that punch was going. Both of the two agents were too professional to flinch. Still, they were only human. It took them a few moments to process the fact that there was someone else in their fight, which Skye used to let the momentum of her dive take her under the Black Widow, and hook a leg around.

Though she didn’t swipe the Black Widow’s feet out from under her like she had intended, Skye managed to recover easily and off. She hadn’t really thought it would work, even though she had hoped so. It was enough to take the Black Widow’s attention away from Ward, which was exactly what Skye wanted.

He use that in attention to land a solid punch to the Avengers jaw. Black Widow managed to hold herself together but Skye was already curling her feet under her torso, coiling it up so that she could pop up like a spring and slam her head into the other woman stomach.

If she had taken a moment to stop and think, Skye would have felt incredibly guilty. These are people she had admired, that she had fangirled over, even when they had showed the bad taste of working with her dad. That she was trying to get something important done and that she knew she couldn’t do it without breaking a few eggs wouldn’t help. Besides, the fight was so fast and at such a breakneck pace that it didn’t matter. She didn’t have the time to think, and she didn’t have the time for doubts.

She just acted.

For a moment, Skye thought that the Black Widow was just going to keep going back. But then her stance firmed, and she held her ground. Just stood there. Skye was impressed. While she couldn’t use Ward to help the Winter Soldier or Ultron until they had dealt with the Black Widow, she was impressed. Still, she did need them, and that meant that two Avengers had to go down.

And still Skye felt as cold as ice.

Ward had stopped pressing the Black Widow, however, even as the Avenger had been falling back. He continued to punch, and jab. They were quick, far quicker than Skye could ever be. She was nowhere near that level and they all knew it. But it still didn’t stop her from taking another shot.

Once again, Skye pulled in on herself, gathering all the power that was in her. Well, all the non-superpower power. It was a different kind of tension to her earthquake powers that were still building, that she would continue to let build. It was a physical tension, a physical strain. It was like a spring slowly winding up, as opposed to a river hitting a dam. Even those metaphors were inadequate but that was fine because she didn’t need to explain it to anybody, at least not yet. She could build difference, she could tell the difference. That was all that mattered

She sprung.

 

Natasha dodged a hit from Ward, doing her best not to show that she was beginning to tire. It had been a long day. Quake hit her like an unstoppable train. And yes, Natasha had some experience with that. It wasn’t quite enough to do serious damage, but it was enough to make Natasha stagger back and for her left foot to land awkwardly. She felt her ankle buckle, and her left knee go at the same time. The knee had always been weak because of what she remembered as a ballet in this injury, but was probably something much more sinister.

Her entire left leg collapsed on her, and she went down hard.

Out of the corner of her eye, she store Steve’s head whipped around. His belly concerned, the old softy. He should have been looking after himself since he was the one fighting the Winter Soldier. Natasha wished that she could tell him that she could look after herself, that he should be worrying about his own safety.

It would have rang false though, because she could feel herself struggling. She then have enhanced physiology, and she had been fighting superhumans and aliens and various really, really annoying ex-HYDRA agents not only that day before the better part of the previous few days.

She was tired.

She looked up just in time to see wards fist rocketing towards her. She barely had time for one thought to flip through her mind: shame that being knocked unconscious was narrow as good arrest as actual sleep.

 

“Leave her,” Skye snapped at Ward as he moved into kill the unconscious Black Widow. Skye may not necessarily be on the good side, or in the good guys good books anymore but that didn’t mean she was going to actively harm them. “You don’t have the time!”

“What then?” Ward asked, taking a step away from the Avengers prone form.

He had given up easily, but Skye had other things to worry about than that. She glanced around, frowning as she did so. The didn’t appear to be any more to Citauri left. Sure, there were piles of corpses but that was all. She looked over at the portal.

Those cowards, they had all gone back and left her to deal with the situation that they had created. Oh, she was sure that Loki was still hanging around somewhere in case she got the idea that she could back out of their deal. There was no way she was going to be that stupid.

It didn’t change the fact that they had left her to do the hard work.

“Get to the Winter Soldier.” It wasn’t quite a bark, but it was very close. Skye only just managed to keep herself from glancing around to see if she could find who had said that, but then she realise that it was her own voice. Whoa.

Ward, shockingly, turned out to be much more effective and intervening in other people’s fights than she was. In a matter of seconds, he was in Captain America’s blindspot, a single punch enough to have the captain dropping to his knees.

Still, it wasn’t enough to put him down and Skye wondered how Ward intended to manage that. Then, the Winter Soldier was there, wrapping his hand around Ward’s wrist and glaring at him. Ward paused and the Winter Soldier let go. For a moment, Skye thought they were going to fight. Then the Russian turned to look down the Captain America.

Skye was only a few meters away, but she couldn’t hear what the Winter Soldier said, just saw his lips move. He  spoke for a good few seconds, looking down at Captain America just as the Avenger looked right back at him. Then, just as the Avenger appeared as though he was getting ready for another round, the Winter Soldier’s fist went slamming into his jaw.

The symbol of American strength when crashing to the ground, just as unconscious as his fellow Avenger.

Suddenly, Skye had to dangerous killing machines looking to her for further orders. She hadn’t really been thinking middle term, fully expecting it to be a lot harder to get to where they were.

“We need to fall back,” she said. She looked around and saw that there were increasingly fewer Ultron. She quickly located and not of the Ultron bots, right near where– Loki. Of course Loki was on the battlefield. “Over there.”

Ward looked over. “Really” he asked, but the fact that he was already moving made answering the question not Skye’s priority. The Winter Soldier followed along behind less than a second later, leaving Skye at the last one there. She glanced down at the unconscious Avengers, and then the guilt hit. She shoved it back down ruthlessly. She had to get moving. It wouldn’t take long for their allies to realise that both the Black Widow and Captain America weren’t responding.

And Skye wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of her plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Schedule of remaining chapters:  
> \- Chapter 20 Part 2 - ASAP  
> \- Epilogue - ASAP
> 
> The second story will start on the 27th of September barring an act of God, and possibly not even then.


	21. I'll Live In The Hearts I Leave Behind - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which- Oh, hell. Who cares about the teasers at this point? This is it, folks. The grand finale. Read at your own risk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It here! *Runs around in circles like a maniac* Okay, there's still the epilogue to clear up a couple of things, but still. Enjoy!

"Captain America and Black Widow are down. Repeat: Black Widow and Captain America are down."

 

"Shit."

Tony just managed to bite back a comment about Clint’s language. The fun was gone when Steve wasn’t there, however. He looked around, trying to see where the other two were. It didn’t take long, Steve suit was bright enough to be seen from quite some distance even under the dirt. Not quite as bright but still equally vision visible against the light brown dust hanging in the air, was Rhodney.

It took Tony a few more seconds to realise that there were two other figures that, the dark red of the jacket of the female Maximoff blending in slightly. Clint had deliberately dressed up, as he always did. Someday, he was going to get hit by friendly fire deeply because he wasn’t seen. As it was, Tony could only see him because his armour had magnification in it.

Good. Those three would be able to get Steve and Romanoff somewhere safe.

Tony looked around, trying to see which enemy had taken down Captain America and Black Widow. He didn’t think it was a Chitauri, since they appeared to have all run off. Hhe didn’t trust the apparent retreat for even a second, particularly with Loki still hanging around. There was something else going on and Tony was determined to find out what. First, he needed to figure out what was taking the other Avengers down, since he didn’t want to fall prey to whatever it was himself.

His eyes caught on the three figures running towards the pack of Ultron bots and Loki. Well, one of the Loki’s.

Tony narrowed his eyes. It didn’t matter, he had the best telescopic visual representation possible inside the helm of the armour. It was a reflexive action, evolved from thousands of years of his species improving on their intelligence in order to produce our Tony to build such amazing technology. Two of the figures were familiar, one very, very familiar. Skye, and the Winter Soldier and the X – HYDRA dude.

And Tony knew in his gut who was responsible. Skye stop

Something landed with a thump next to him. He didn’t need to turn around and look in order to know that it was the not-JARVIS. Vision, that was what Thor had decided to call him.

Tony refused to admit that he had feelings at all, never mind that he had any feelings regarding the new addition to the Avengers. He had had a hand in his creation but he maintained that didn’t make him responsible for the ensuing product. Case in point: Ultron.

"It was Skye, wasn't it?"

Tony didn’t even need to specify what he was talking about, or what he had thought Skye had done. “Indeed.”

Tony still felt like a punch to the gut. “I told them she wasn’t on our side.”

Vision turned his head to look at him. Tony was still looking straight had, but he saw the movement out of the corner of his eye. “I do not think that was untrue then,” Vision said. “But something in the situation has changed.”

Tony didn’t care of anything a change. Hitting care what Skye was thinking. Clearly, she wasn’t. All he cared about was how awful this was going to make… Pepper feel. And Rhodey. Rhodey wouldn’t be too pleased either, in might already have seen that Skye was on the battlefield. Tony hadn’t thought to brief him, because Tony wasn’t used to sharing information.

Okay. He also didn’t want to be the one to have to break the news. Usually, he had enough money to be able to pay someone else to do that.

If Skye had been responsible for that, well them. It was time for Tony to do something he should have done earlier. It was time that he and his daughter had a heart to heart. Screaming match. The two was pretty much interchangeable when it came to him and Skye.

 

Skye and her two… What? Minions? Well, Skye and her two minions arrived at the spot where the Ultron bots and Loki had set up something of a makeshift barricade without too much trouble.

“Skye,” one of the Ultron bots acknowledged.

They were all so similar, but there were only a few left. Skye felt a shiver skittered down her spine. There used to be hundreds, possibly even thousands of them before the fight had started. It should have been enough to stand against the Avengers, and it might even have done so. But hadn’t been enough to allow for the brief few minutes when the Ultron bots had fought against the Chitauri. She assured Loki a half-hearted glare.

The alien nodded at her cordiality. Skye forced away a strange sense of impending doom, but then it dispelled itself. She knew the situation was bad, but that had still been a little weird. She shook herself. She was going to be spending a decent amount of time with Loki, after agreeing with the deal. Of course she was feeling a sense of doom. All she could do was hope that he was far less obnoxious when he was on the same side as her.

But she doubted it.

“You need to bring that you carry about,” she told the alien.

He grimaced. “That would not be advisable. Such a request would make the both of us appear weak to Thanos.”

Skye hissed and annoyance. It was an excuse, it was a good one. At any rate, Loki seemed as though he believed it, for what that was worth. “So I just have to make do with what I’ve got?” she demanded.

“Precisely.”

Wonderful. Skye grunted in acknowledgment. She felt rather badly mannered compared to the Asgardian Prince but then she hadn’t tried to invade New York so she figured that she was still coming out ahead. She surveyed the battlefield again. Shit. Another Ultron bot had just been destroyed by her ever annoying Dad. In fact, he seem to be coming her way. She glanced around, desperately looking for something that could stop him in his tracks. Hell, she would take just about anything at that point. Nothing presented itself.

Well, except the fact that, over in the distance, she could see that Captain America was on his feet again. Dear God, could nothing stop the man? Skye tried not to think about Coulson. It was hard; in her mind, Captain America and her boss/friend were completely intertwined.

That was a problem for another time, however. Her current issue was the ever annoying father who was coming her way.

“Hi, dad. Fancy seeing you here,” she said.

“Skye.”There was nothing amused or amusing about it. Frankly, she had never heard her dad so serious. It was a little bit scary.

“What brings you by?” she asked. It was her old defence mechanism, humour in the face of a threat. She had a quick fight back to the first time she had been in the Bus’ interview room. You know, after she had been black bagged by Coulson and Ward. She thought she had put up a pretty good front than and she was trying to put up a good front in the present too.

There was silence for a moment but, when he answered, it was with false cheer. “Well, I just thought I would swing by and gloat for a little.”

“Gloat?” She asked. “Really, you’re hardly in a position to gloat.”

He shrugged. There was a little bit too much peace to the movement to reassure Skye. He hummed slightly, like an idling computer. "I wasn’t thinking about the fight. I was talking about the ‘I told you so’ that I get to tell pretty much everyone who is ever met you."

A lump formed in Skye’s stomach. She ground her teeth in annoyance. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I mean, I didn't exactly call this,” he waved his hand as though to indicate the entire disaster that was the Battle of Novi Grad, “but you gotta admit I did call the fact that you weren’t smart enough to know better than to help help our Loki of all people."

The Asgardian didn't say anything, just shot Skye’s Dad a glare that was practically physical. It must've been completely unlike what he had shown her Dad before, because he was surprised enough to take a step back. He stopped himself from going any further, and swung his gaze back to Skye. "He just proved my point," he said.

Skye wasn't infuriated; she knew that she was being baited. She knew that her Dad was trying to get her out from her nice little spot with Loki and Ultron and Ward and the Winter Soldier. She was very well protected, and it was clear that most of the others would protect her above all else. Which also meant that, if the Avengers managed to get their hands on her, they could hold her hostage to get whatever concessions they liked. She knew that; her Dad knew that.

Skye had no problem using his own plan against him.

"What, that you’re a dick? I think that point was made a long time ago."

It was crude, but effective. And it was impossible to tell what her dad's reaction was through the faceplate of the iron man armour. No doubt that would make him feel as though he had the advantage, that she was grasping at straws. Excellent.

"Sweetheart, I'm not the one who is trying to take over the world."

"Please. You could have done that years ago if you could’ve been bothered. Not bothering does not give you the moral high ground."

Skye didn’t need to need to see her Dad’s jaw clench to know that had hit home. Good. If he was getting angry, then he was more like the say something that would get her angry. Not only with that help build up the tension that was humming through her body, the kind that allowed her to bring down avalanches and shake the ground if she wanted, but it would also get angry enough that it would be convincing when she did something stupid. When she broke cover, and went for her Dad.

It would also be convincing when she went for her Dad and pretended not to notice how close Vision was to him.

Vision had followed her dad down, his quietness as he shadowed one of his primary makers all the more of a contrast with her Dad’s brashness. Skye almost felt guilty over the fact that she was risking his life. She shoved the feeling down, because she knew that it didn't matter. Her reasons for doing it were far more important than the life of one single person.

After all, it was more important than her life.

“What would you know about the moral high ground?" Her Dad demanded. "You've never done a hard day's work in your life. And now you're screwing over the world."

Skye felt the anger slam into her like a truck. It was exactly what she needed, and she could feel the power blossoming to fill every single cubic inch of her body. She was overflowing with anger and power and it was all too much, too much for her to hold. She was so very glad that she didn't need to.

Skye darted to the side, ignoring the surprised shout that came from Ward. There was warning there, but the tone made itself known to her only subconsciously. Her attention was elsewhere. The bulk of it was still on her Dad, but not much. Most of her attention was focused on Vision.

Skye changed direction in midair, a tiny blast of vibrations from her right hand sending her spiralling off towards Vision. Her leap wasn’t far since Skye was only human, but even that small touch of power shot her towards her target, further and faster than anything normal.

There was a yelp a surprise from her Dad, and even Vision’s eyes widened, but neither could react in time. In a flash, Skye was hitting Vision, the force rattling her teeth, but she had more pressing issues than her own pain. She had all that power coursing through her blood and almost overflowing, and she could feel it trying to reach down to the small vibrations that had been itching at the back of her mind without her realising it.

But the vibrations weren’t comign from her, which meant that there was only one possible source. They must be the machine, the machine that Ultron had set up. She had forgotten about that. Well, it was just something else she was going to have to solve since no one else seem to be able to resolve anything around there. Later.

With her on one arm slung around Vision’s neck to hold herself high enough, Skye reached out and grabbed the Mind Stone.

It took all of her, every last iota of restraint she didn't know she had, to hold the power in. The moments she tried to dam it, she felt the power burn its way through her body, like she has drunk acid. It gushed like a torrent, hitting its own backwash as it made its way back through her body, like the overlapping ripples in a bath tub. Just as each wave went out, it hit the wave returning.

Distantly, she realised her entire body was shaking. She had thought that seeing infinity had been bad. This attempt was worse. It was so very much worse.

She was screaming. That was a thing that was happening. It wasn't conscious, it was just what had happened. She had all the power of the Infinity Stone searing through her and she was not an Asgardian, she was not immortal. She was human, and she had dammed up her one outlet, the one thing that kept it from overwhelming.

Skye tried to remember what the whole point of the exercise was. She thought that there had been a reason, a reason why she subjected herself to such pain, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember what it was. All she could remember was the agony. She felt as though her very soul was being ripped from the body, but also as though the Infinity Stone was absorbing itself into her at the same time. It was a strange feeling, like an oxymoron made flesh and then injected straight into her mind. She hated it.

Vision bucked, trying to throw her off. It all came crashing back to Skye, both the pain and the reason for it. Suddenly, her mind was completely clear. Well, it probably wasn't but - comparatively - it felt like it. It was probably only the comparison that allowed her to think and act. Otherwise, her mind would likely have given up.

She could feel all that power bubbling up inside her, so strong that she was physically shuddering like an earthquake and as though her very bones were vibrating. It hurt, but not as much as it had when she had shattered her own bones. At least she had managed to learn how to not do that.

She shoved all the power into the body under her. It was like a levy breaking. It was a terrible metaphor, but it was the one that came to mind. It felt like a natural disaster was rumbling its way through her, all the more destructive because it was concentrated. It was like all the earthquakes in the world had been funnelled through Skye to be shoved inside Vision’s body.

The android began to shake along with her, the vibrations completely in sync. She could tell because the rest of the world was shaking but she and Vision remained perfectly still. That told her that they were moving in time, since she was pretty sure that it wasn't the rest of the world shaking.

Vision’s mouth opened, probably to say something. But no sound came out, or else it just wasn't processing through the rush of blood in Skye’s ears. Just because she was shoving the earthquake inside her into Vision didn't mean that she wasn't still dragged along by the natural disaster. Not even close.

She felt the first crack distinctly, the sensation overriding all the others, as though she was actually part of Vision. She focused all her efforts on the cracking, then focusing her eyes. She gathered up all the traces of power inside her and forced it to head down. Skye would have said that it was the hardest thing she had ever done, except she had done some pretty tough things recently and she was likely to do just as things that were just as difficult in the future.

Finally, she hit the crest of the power. It was she was nothing but pure destruction made flesh. She managed to force her neck to straighten, he head having thrown itself back in a scream. She looked at Vision. More accurately, she looked down at his face.

It was completely riddled with cracks.

 

Steve had a hell of a headache. Metaphorically and literally. He hadn't been knocked out by Bucky since he had been looking at him, and he couldn't help but notice that it was going to come back to bite him in the form of much mocking from Tony. Steve wasn’t looking forward to it but he had more pressing issues to worry about.

Like the fact that his shield was vibrating as it never had before. He slipped his hand out of the grip, reaching around to grab the opposite edges with both hands. But not even his super soldier strength could absorb the shacking and hold it steady. Steve had never felt anything like it and that was starting to worry him.

It was shaking as though the entire world was trembling, and nothing he could do would stop it. He looked around for some help and suddenly saw Tony. Steve no idea when he had arrived, but then there were a lot of people milling around on the battlefield. But not even their combined strength would be enough to hold it steady, even if they could leave their battles with the Ultron bots.

Steve considered the problem for a second before deciding that he needed to see how it would act without him holding steady. Gently, he put the shield on the ground and took a step back. It rattled and jumped and popped. It was acting the same way even without him, and that chilled Steve to the bone. His shield had never acted like that before, and he couldn’t see why it would be doing so.

Steve eyeballed the battlefield, and realised that there was something strange going on that would explain why his shield was acting that way. It was acting that way because Vision, who was also made of vibranium,was. They must continue to be some kind of link between the material even want had been separated.

But suddenly Steve had more pressing issues that his shield. He had never heard anything like the yell that Quake gave you as she held on to the Mind Stone that was embedded in visions forehead. It seemed as though it had completely bypassed Steve’s ears and gone straight to his spine, making every hair on his head stand up.  It had been almost inhuman.

At his feet, his shield cracked.

 

Vision’s face looked like some old temple wall, cracks creeping out like cobwebs and with bits and pieces falling off and smashing into of dust. Skye blinked. He was made of metal, her brain said. There shouldn't be any dust unless…

Well. Skye had known that vibranium could withstand a lot of force, that it would take a lot of strength to be able to vibrate the vibranium enough to crack it, never mind destroy it. With the power boost of the Mind Stone, it looked like she had managed to grind it to dust. It was a little bit impressive, and a little bit scary.

Skye gripped at the Mind Stone again. Up until that point, only part of her fingers had been pressed against the jewel. The Mind Stone had been seamlessly integrated into Vision, and that meant that there was little to no purchase there. But, with the cracks beginning to appear, Skye scrabbled around with her fingertips, trying to press her nails into the fine separations are beginning to appear between the android and the Infinity Stone.

It popped out. It had taken so little pressure, after such a difficult task, it took Skye completely by surprise.

She had thought that it would take a lot of effort and a lot of strength, but it had turned out to be quite easy. She suppose that she had already done the hard work. But she had been working herself up, had been accumulating so much power that to suddenly have what she was trying to get in her hand, that she had a surplus of energy still rushing through her veins.

For a moment, her eyes caught Vision’s and the android simply looked at her. There was no judgement there, but Skye couldn’t help but imagine what he thought of her. This being had been built from the remains of JARVIS apparently, and Skye had more than a few things to answer to their. At least, she did now that he was no longer a program.

Then she was falling. She hadn't noticed the arm she had a slung around Vision’s shoulders loosening, not until she was landing on the ground. It was surprisingly graceful, all the more so because she had consciously tried to do it. It was as though her body knew to look after itself, while she was still trying to process the implications of the Mind Stone just popping out.

It didn’t help that her mind was still trying to process all the power that was coursing through her.

Because what Skye had forgot to plan for was the fact that she was still holding the Mind Stone once she had pulled it out. Before, she had been storing up that power so that she could use it to weaken the vibranium, a feat she wouldn't be capable of on her own. She had thought that she would released some of that power, and after she would been fine, except that she was still holding the Infinity Stone.

Which meant it was still sending those burning waves of power crashing her, and overwhelming her mind.

Reality snapped back into place. Skye blinked, and all the pain was still there but she could finally think again. And what she thought was she needed to move. She was just standing there gaping like an idiot, and that was going to get her killed.

She spun, her muscles tensing to push off and run, but then she realised she was suddenly somewhere else. The disorientation of the sudden shift wasn’t helped by the old, almost fake feel of a movie set. She was standing in a metal room, completely deserted except for the metal pillar in the middle. Skye blinked. It was completely different from the ruins of Novi Grad.

What?

Then it was gone, and her muscles were pushing off. No time had passed, even though she could've sworn she had been staring dumbfounded at the new scene. It was strange, nothing like all the visions that had passed through her mind when she had first touch the Infinity Stone. God, that felt like so long ago.

Those had been insubstantial, but the new one felt solid in a way the others never had, as though she has really been there, rather than simply seeing it remotely. But it must've just been a trick of the mind, because it was the battle that was real. She could feel that, from the shocks running up her legs as she pounded against the cobblestones, trying to avoid any rubble so she didn't turn an ankle, to the yelling of the Avengers and the roaring of blood in her ears.

But even as she continued to feel the slip and slide of the rubble under her feet, the world changed again. She was still running, but she was running through what looked like a mad scientist’s lab, if the mad scientist was halfway through cleaning up after an experiment gone wrong. Broken glass tanks and random bits of junk peppered the huge room, but Skye’s eyes slipped right by that and locked on a single piece of machinery.

Every fiber of her being told her that the metal jar with the eerie red glow was the only thing in the room that mattered.

Then she ran right through it and the scene blew away like smoke on the wind. It wasn’t like the previous one where it felt as though no time had passed; it was clear that she had been running while her mind had been elsewhere. But she barely had a second to process that thought before she was plunged underwater.

It was strange to still feel as though she was running through air when Skye’s eyes told her that she was running through water. Of course, you couldn't run through water, not easily. The solid feeling beneath her feet was stone, slick and slimy with weeds and moss. The stone structures around her, reaching towards the slightly later waters above her, must be the ruins of the walls that once stood there.

In the distance, something unearthly stirred. A gigantic shape, nothing but a shadow through the gloom of the water. Skye’s gaze snapped away and resolved to gaze firmly ahead, not wanting to see any more. She didn't think she was actually there, she wasn’t in any danger from whatever was there. She didn’t need to see what she was picking up out of the corner of her eye. It couldn’t hurt her, so it would only be fodder for nightmares.

Something glimmered in the gloom ahead.

And then Skye was right back where she started, still running down the street in Novi Grad. She could hear movement behind her, probably the Avengers coming after her. Whether it was for the Mind Stone or for what she had just done to Vision, she couldn't say. Nor did it matter. All that mattered was that she needed to keep running. Ahead of her, she could see Ward and the Soldier waiting for her. She couldn't see Loki, which was always a worry, but not her most pressing issue.

Her eyes caught on Ward’s, and suddenly someone else stood in his place. The man had the same jawline, the same colouring. Sure, his dark hair was much more curly, and a little floppy. He still looked just as dangerous as Ward, possibly more so even though he didn't have anywhere near wards muscles. He was dressed in a crisp suit, and his eyes widened.

For the first time, something that she had seen had seen her back. Skye could still feel herself running. To him, it must have looked as though she was charging him. He stood his ground and glared right at her, his hand shooting to the brooch holding his cape – yes, really – together. Embedded in the brooch was a stone.

Skye didn't have to be a genius to know what it was.

Then she blinked, and the man was gone. She kept running, and this time Ward stayed the same. And closer. Thank god, she was nearly there. All Skye could do was hope that there were no more –

The world went dark, and this time Skye wasn't moving even though she felt as though she were still running. Her limbs told her that they were obeying her but the scene she was seeing wasn’t moving. She looked down. Her body appeared still. She swallowed and looked up.

Above her the endless blackness of space stretched, relieved only by a tiny handful of stars. A shiver ran down her spine.  It felt like standing out on the furthest reaches of deserted space.

The rock that she was standing on was barren, and flat and chiseled. It was clearly artificial. Someone had put a considerable amount of time and effort into making it usable but not in any way comforting. At least, not to a human.

And the Tesseract glowed.

It was the only light source there, an eerie and rippling blue, like the stone wasn't made from anything solid, but  a liquid held in a single shape. The light was practically flowing, and Skye could feel it flowing right down her spine.

It took almost more strength than she possesed but she  managed to tear her eyes away and look above it. The being that stood there was watching her, much like the humanoid before. No one would mistake this being for human, though. The features were too rugged and the jaw far too wide. Oh, and he was purple. There was that.

Skye knew who had the Tesseract. This being, this being with a powerful Infinity Stone out in the distant reaches of the galaxy, could only be one person.

Thanos.

She stopped running, because what else could she do? It wasn’t like she was going anywhere. Besides, it was Thanos. Skye stared. What could she do? It was–

Something hit her around the middle, sending her flying. It knocked her right out of the illusion she had been in, and she whipped her head around only to find herself back in Sokovia.

For a moment, Skye wasn't entirely sure what it happened. Then she saw the bright red armor. It was what had caught her, knocking her to the ground and causing the scrape she could feel across  her right cheek. Her Dad.

His face mask popped open. "Skye!" he yelled. She had never seen him so furious.

Skye scrambled to her feet, spinning as fast as she could and pushing off again. She ran. She ran as she had never run before, chased by the image of Thanos despite the fact that she was running towards him, that she needed to get through the portal. It didn't matter how much seeing what she was going towards shaken her. It didn't matter, because consequences for her didn't matter. What mattered was what she was doing for Earth.

Again something grabbed her. Shit. Of course her dad had jet boots. She turned to look at him. Their eyes clashed.

"Drop the Mind Stone." She had never heard her Dad so serious, even if the main competition was their earlier arguments. It only just occurred to her that this was the first time he had ever really treated her as an adult. Well, treated her as an adult while he was acting as an adult. Skye wasn't sure that she liked it. She pulled back, and she punched him right in the nose.

He reared back, howling. Skye could have sworn that she had felt a crunch, so perhaps she had broken his nose. At any rate there was definitely some blood. The satisfaction bubbled up like some nasty dark, twisted thing. It wasn't good and it wasn't nice, but it made her feel a cruel bit of pleasure.

Skye went right back to running. She couldn't afford to dwell. She had to focus her entire being on getting to the portal. Eyes on the prize. Unfortunately, eyes on the prize revealed the problem.

She could see that the portal was beginning to shrink. The edges of the window into outer space beginning fail in on themselves, like a piece of newspaper that was just out of reach of the fire, wilting in the heat. She barely resisted the urge to scream in frustration, but she had much better uses for the breath. She needed every ounce of energy that she had to just try and get there faster. If she could just get there a little bit faster…

Suddenly, Ultron was passing her, going in the other direction. Despite her instincts, Skye spun to see what was going on. It was only then that she realised what danger she had been.

She reared back, only just missing being hit by Thor's hammer. She sucked in a breath, her lungs burning. If that had hit her, there probably wouldn't have been much left other than a smear of blood. Either Thor had genuinely just tried to kill her, or he had forgotten that she wasn't as durable as an Asgardian. Skye couldn't afford the risk that it was the first.

"Skye, go!" Ultron yelled. It was less than a second later that an arrow punched through the head of the bot, exploding. The rest of the body fell to its knees but didn't completely stop. At least, it didn't until Captain America punched through it.

The Avengers were catching up.

Skye flinched again. She needed to be moving, she knew that but… She spun, beginning to run back towards the portal, her eyes searching. She needed to know just how many of the Ultrons were left. As best she could remember, there had been eight or so before. She had no idea what the new number was, but it was at least one less.

She could only see four. Only four Ultrons left, and she suspected that was in the whole world rather than just on the one street. Everyone else seemed to be in the street, all of the Avengers. Everyone was there and it hit Skye.

Of course they were all there. It was the final showdown, the epic fight. She had been completely focused on just getting the Mind Stone and running. It hadn't even occurred to her that they were all getting ready for some dramatic showdown, and they had the advantage of numbers.

Suddenly, there was another Ultron there. It grabbed both her shoulders, bringing her to a halt. She noticed that the others were passing her, heading towards the fight. The other Ultrons, anyway. Ward, the Winter Soldier and Loki were all there too, but they had arrayed themselves in front of Ultron, well the Ultron that was holding Skye.

She wondered idly if the other bad guys knew what Ultron’s plan was. Why he had stopped her from running toward safety.

"You need to go, Skye," Ultron said.

"That's what I was trying to do," she panted. She hadn't even realised just how much the lungs were burning, how much legs were shaking from the repeated impact on hard ground, not until she stopped.

Ultron reached up to his torso, pressing down against what would be the top of his chest if he was human. Skye couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. What on earth?

Something popped out. Skye, who had lived her entire life with Stark tech, kicked herself. Of course he wasn't just solid steel, there had to be more there. There were probably a bunch of surprises. Or at least, there had been, in the old Ultron that her dad had designed.

But it looked like there were only Ultron bots left, the ones that Ultron had designed, and he had been pressed for time and more concerned with making many than including many tricks. Still, a piece of metal stuck out of the secret compartment.

Ultron jerked the piece of metal out of its casing, the movement sharp and hard. It was impatient, as well it should be. The Avengers were attacking all, and Ultron was busy pulling something out of his body. Skye really hoped it was a grenade or something. But no, she saw that it wasn’t as he held it out to her.

It took her a moment to realise what it was. It was a USB stick, but it was what she imagined a USB stick would be like on steroids. It was about three times the size of any USB that Skye had ever seen, though with a connection that would into the right imput. It looked like it could survive a nuclear weapon being launched at it, though that was not a theory that Skye wish to test.

Ultron passed it over to her, pressing it into her hand. Skye’s hand closed upon it automatically. The metal was slightly warm, and it was a surprise even though Skye supposed that Ultron must run on some kind of energy. Probably something like an arc reactor, and that might make Ultron’s exterior cooler than expected but it was still not enough for the interior to remain cold. Still, it was colder than her hand.

“What do you do with it?” she asked, looking up at him.

Ultron reached out and closed his hand around the fist she was making. “Keep it safe. When the time comes, you will know what to do.”

That was a lot of faith in Skye, and she wasn’t entirely sure that it was warranted. She had no idea what was on the USB stick, so she wasn’t entirely sure how she was meant to know when the time came. She considered saying as much but she suspected that they had much more pressing issues, so she simply nodded and shoved this USB into her pocket.

She had had many pockets in her cargo pants when the fight had started, but while she wasn’t too seriously injured, the fight had been hard on her clothing. She was missing several pockets, the big baggy ones on the outside, so she had shoved it into one of the interior pockets. It was less likely to be lost in a fight.

“Ultron,” she said, then stopped. She wasn’t sure what she had wanted to say, but she felt like she needed to say something. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

He looked at her, and he looked almost sad. He looked around, but it had to be a deliberate movement. Ultron had many bots, so he had no need to look around, or to take his attention away from whoever he was talking to- Skye looked around herself and her heart froze. There were no more Ultron bots. The Avengers had destroyed them all. And that was why he was looking around, something he hadn’t had to do until then.

For the first time in a very long while, there was only one Ultron.

Skye sucked in a breath. It was strange, she hadn’t thought that she would worry for Ultron. The entire point of the original exercise, pretending to be a supervillain, was to stop him. And her opinion on his sanity hadn’t changed at all, even though he was right about Thanos being a threat.

He had been right, even if his methods were completely batshit crazy. That was why he had done it all, she understood that. But she hadn’t understood just how terrified she would feel when there was only one left, when he was so nearly gone.

Subconsciously, she realised, she had been thinking that there might be some way to save him. That the fact that he had a reasonable objective, meant that there was something that could be done. That she could persuade the Avengers, or even SHIELD and that someone, somehow, would take pity on her brother.

And then there was only one. And Skye could see his end. She could see it as clearly as if it was actually happening. The Avengers had only one more enemy left, aside from her. The alien invasion had pretty much ended. She had the Mind Stone, but she was one person. She would run, but Ultron would not. He was protecting her, because he was her brother and she was his sister and no amount of biology could change that.

And Ultron was going to die. He was going to die, and Skye couldn’t see any way to save him.

“Come on,” she said. Something choked up in her throat. It might have been the beginnings of an impotent fury, or perhaps it was been the beginnings of a sob. Whatever it was, she pushed it down. “Come on, Ultron, we need to go. We need to get away.”

He looked at her, and there was something very sad about it. Nothing in his features changed, but they both knew that it was useless. “I can hold them,” he said. “I can hold them long enough for you to get away.”

“Don’t be stupid, there is only one of you. There is only one of you, and you can help while we retreat. Ultron, has no shame in retreating.”

He smiled. It was beautiful. “And they will follow you right through the portal,” he said. “We both know that they will”

“We can–” He cut her off.

“No, Skye. This is my choice. I can let you get away cleanly. You’ll be safe, and Thanos will be stopped from attacking Earth.”

Skye’s heart jumped to her throat, then sank right back down to her stomach. She knew that determination, even though they weren’t genetically linked. She had it, their Dad had it. Apparently, Ultron had it too. He wouldn’t be stopped, no matter what she said.

She had persuaded him to do a lot so far but she also knew that she had come at from the right direction. She had exploited his previous decisions, and what she had known of him. She sucked in a breath. Exploited… She had exploited him. A terrible, desperate idea occurred to her. She couldn’t persuade him, so perhaps you should try something other than persuading him.

“I betrayed you,” she said. She kept her face not blank, but determined. Her eyes were steady. When Ultron froze completely, she didn’t flinch.

“Skye–”

She knew that he was about to protest, so she didn’t give him a chance. “I was working for SHIELD all along. I was letting your affection for me blind you to the fact that I was trying to persuade you to stop, and that I was going to take you out if you didn’t.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Ultron said. But there was something in his voice, something that said he was beginning to review all the interactions. He had enough processing power, though the fact that it was just him meant that he wasn’t operating like a botnet anymore. His capacity might be somewhat diminished.

“It’s true. That’s why the Avengers was so surprised when I sided with the Chitauri. At various points, most of them were aware that I was helping them. That I was betraying you.”

She considered saying more, but she figured that she had said enough for the moment. She stayed quiet, assessing Ultron’s reaction. Well, reaction was probably putting a little bit strongly. He was completely frozen, and she could practically hear his processor wearing. He was thinking.

“You betrayed me,” he said softly. She suppressed a shiver. He must’ve found something in his memory banks to support what she was saying. She could see him considering it in a new light, and she suppress the urge to sob. This, this was her chance.

It was her only chance to stop Ultron from doing something stupid and throwing away his, well not life, but existence. He was planning to make a heroic last stand to protect her, and she wasn’t having any of it. He was her brother, no matter what. She wasn’t going to let him do anything as stupid. And if that meant completely ruining their relationship, well she was going to be on the other side the galaxy anyway.

“Did you really think that I was going to side with you when you’re trying to destroy the world?” she asked quietly. It was neither the time nor the place, but she wasn’t going to get another. She wanted to explain, she wanted to excuse–

But that didn’t matter. What he thought of her didn’t matter, all that mattered was that he didn’t do anything stupid and throw away what he had, throw away what could potentially be immortality. He had a chance, a chance at a second chance. Skye knew how precious those were.

Oh God, she was turning into Coulson. She was giving Ultron a chance when he might not necessarily deserve it.

That was weird. She wasn’t used to being that kind of person, the person who made those calls. She had been helping Coulson out the previous few months, but that had been because there was no one else there. She couldn’t quite wrap her head around the fact that she might be making serious decisions. And yes, that was despite the fact that she was giving up her life to protect the earth.

“I…” Ultron started, then stopped there. Something strange passed over his features, something that Skye couldn’t quite put a name to. His face firmed. “I don’t care.”

Skye wasn’t sure what she had expected him to say, but it most certainly wasn’t that. “You don’t care?”

“No. I don’t care, Skye.”

What? Dammit, he wasn’t arguing that she had betrayed him. There must have been something in there, something that she had slipped up on, though she couldn’t quite think what it was at that particular time. She had been ready to argue her case, to convince him that she really had betrayed him. She wasn’t sure how to deal with the fact that he seemed to be letting it go.

“I betrayed you,” she said, in case you can quite realise that.

“I understand that. And it doesn’t matter.” Ultron smiled. Distantly, Skye heard the sound of the Avengers fighting getting closer. “I don’t care that you betrayed me.”

“That’s incredibly stupid!” she yelled. It was incredibly risky of him, to just forgive someone like that. What on earth was he thinking?

“You came to me,” he said. There was such a sense of smugness and satisfaction about him that Skye almost smiled before she managed to catch herself.

“Yes, that’s what I said. I came so I could ingratiate myself with you, so that I could be the mole –”

“No,” Ultron said. “Just now. You saved the Earth, and then you came to me to help you do it. You could have gone to the Avengers, could have tried to convince them. It wouldn’t have been the easy but you could manage it. You didn’t even try. When you needed help, when you needed to do something difficult, you came to me.

“It doesn’t matter what your intentions originally were, you’re my sister and I was the first one you came to for help. So I. Don’t. Care.”

Skye gaped at him. Of all the things– But she hadn’t thought of it like that, and he had a point. She had very good reasons for not going to the Avengers, but they were things that she could have worked around. Going to Ultron was the path of least resistance, but it was the fact that she considered it to be the path of least resistance that was so telling. Ultron had, and she couldn’t quite believe she was thinking this, a point. Skye still wasn’t sure whether she should be forgiven, but she could see what he was saying.

“But–” she said, feeling lost. At once, it felt as though her load had been lightened, the guilt and the conflict evaporating, blown away on the wind. But at the same time it felt as though the sense of impending doom that had been teasing at her consciousness ever since the battle had begun was pressing in closer on her. Something bad was going to happen, worse than had already happened, and because Ultron trusted her so much, she couldn’t get him out of the way.

“Please Ultron,” she begged. “Just go. Go away from here. You’ve barely had a life, you don’t need to risk it now.”

Ultron reached out, and put a hand on her shoulder. He squeezed, but then, as though that wasn’t enough,  he suddenly jerked her towards him. Skye hit the hard metal of his torso the slight wince, all the aches and bruises and scrapes adding up.

But that didn’t matter, because his arms were wrapping around her and he squeezed. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t flesh and blood, it didn’t matter that they had only known each other a matter of a few days, she reached around and squeezed him back.

She tried to put into the hug all the things she couldn’t find the words to say, all the things that they didn’t have the time to say. The Avengers were getting closer and their allies wouldn’t be able to hold them for long, but but still Skye squeezed.

The tears took her by surprise, even though they probably shouldn’t have.

She began to sob, pressing her face even harder into the metal. It was stupid, it was risky; she didn’t care. This was her brother, and he was still going to risk himself, going to get himself killed, to protect her. He was protecting her even though he knew what she had done, that she had intended to betray him. No, that she had betrayed him.

“Please,” she begged. “Please. Little brother, don’t. You deserve a chance to live. No one is more important than that, not even me.”

He pressed his hand to the back of her head. He wasn’t quite crushing her against him, but he was coming very close. There was a wealth of sentiment in the gesture. Skye would never again think that computer programs couldn’t feel, she would never again underestimate just what could be made for a few lines of code. Ultron cared. He cared, and he cared as much as she did.

He let go, tilting her head back so that she was looking into his eyes. “I know why you’re doing this. You think you’re trying to save me. Don’t I have as much right to sacrifice myself as you do?”

The tears were flowing freely. “You know you do,” Skye said even though she wished she could give any other answer but that. “But you don’t have to kill yourself doing it. The price doesn’t have to be–”

“The price for saving the Earth was your life,” he said gently. “I would never dishonour your sacrifice by offering anything less than the same.”

“But you’ll die.” It was as bold she could say it, no prevaricating. He was only a matter of days old. He was too young to die, no matter how fast his processors could work. He was so young, and he was her little brother. Surely that meant she had a duty to protect him.

Ultron smiled. “You know why we’re doing this, right? Remember, Skye. Peace in our time.”

Skye nodded. “Of course, but–”

“You’re not listening.” He lowered his hand to her waist, and he pressed hard against the pocket that contained the USB he had given her. For a moment, Skye had no idea why. Then the hard corners of the super USB bit into a skin and she realised what he was trying to indicate. “I don’t think there are any USB ports and space,” he observed.

Skye stared at him blankly. “What?” She asked intelligently.

“If you make it back to Earth,” Ultron said, “so do I.” He pressed hard against the USB. “Skye. Peace in _our_ time.”

Even with how blatant he was being, it still took her a second. Ultron was a computer program. All the bots, the body he was currently inhabiting, they were artificial constructs. They were not necessary for his continued existence. Ultron was a program. He was code. And he could be put on a USB. She got it, finally.

“Oh. Oh.” She thought about it for a second. “But what if I don’t ever make it back?”

He smiled gently again. “Then I will have the same fate as you. To never return to this Earth.”

“I-” she said but Ultron was looking at the portal behind her.

“You need to go now,” he said urgently. She whipped her head around. The portal had been shrinking before, but it was starting to get much smaller. It wouldn’t be long before she wouldn’t be able to fit through. She turned back to him.

“Ultron–”

“I know, Skye.” He pushed her and she staggered a few steps away. “Now, go!”

Skye turned and ran. She ran for the portal, even though everything in her was telling her to turn around and make a last stand with Ultron. But then, it wasn’t a last stand. It was just a last stand for now, a last stand until Skye made it back to Earth. The conniving bastard. She had guessed that he wouldn’t like that she would sacrifice herself to Thanos. That much was obvious. She just hadn’t thought that he would act on it.

He had given her a reason to get back to Earth. She stopped within arm’s length of the portal. He had done that for her, and she couldn’t let that go to waste. She didn’t have it in her to leave someone behind. She spun, intending to go back, but Ward and the Winter Soldier and Loki were already on her.

“What are you doing?” Ward yelled at her as he skidded to a halt next to her. “We need to go, Skye!”

“But Ultron–” she yelled, trying to make herself heard over the roaring of the portal. Strange, she hadn’t noticed the sound. In her hand, the Mind Stone burned. Oh.

“He’s made his choice!” Ward yelled. “He’s sacrificing himself. Are you going to waste that?”

It was smart, but Skye wasn’t thinking. Ultron–

The blast tore through Ultron’s torso, taking out the bulk of it. Skye screamed. She knew the who the blast had come from, had seen it a thousand times when she observed Iron Man is battles, seen the difference in the colour of the energy compared to the War Machine suit. There was only one person on the Avengers who had it: their Dad.

Skye hadn’t even realised she was moving until a pair of arms caught her around the middle. “Ultron!” she screamed.

“That’s not a good idea, doll.” A metal arm hooked around her waist and hauled her away, hard. There was strength there, far more than she had. Even though she was struggling with all her might to get to Ultron as he fell to his knees, she didn’t have the physical strength to resist. Her powers gathered–

A hand squeezed her shoulder, a gesture so similar to what Ultron had done only seconds before that it stopped her. Her head whipped around, and Loki gave her a grave nod. There was sorrow in his eyes. Not much, but enough. It jolted Skye out of her powers enough that she realise just how close to devastation she had been. The Mind Stone was still humming in her hand, and it sounded almost disappointed.

“You will see him again someday,” Loki said.

Skye didn’t believe him. He had no way of knowing that. She turned and, again, she was just in time to witness something that she wished she hadn’t seen. With a single blow of his hammer – mighty, some small part of her thought nastily – Thor took off Ultron’s head.

Skye could barely remember going through the portal. She was too busy screaming and struggling as the Winter Soldier and Ward pulled her bodily away from the Avengers. The only thing running through her mind was that she had to get to Ultron, she had to help him even though it was too late. She had to–

The world changed. The dusty light of Novi Grad was gone, leaving only the darkness of space. It was familiar, she had seen it mere minutes before. She knew where she was, but that didn’t stop her from struggling. Just the opposite; every bone in her body, every fibre, every brain cell, told her that she needed to. She needed to get away, she needed to run. She couldn’t say if she was running to something, or away from something. Maybe it was a little bit of both.

Then Loki was there, leaning in close and whispering into her ear. “He wouldn’t want you to throw your life away by doing something stupid,” he said, even though Loki couldn’t possibly have gotten Ultron’s measure in the small amount of time they had spent together. But it was enough. It was enough for Skye to take a deep breath, to realise that Ultron really would have wanted her to protect herself.

She stilled. She took another deep breath, ignoring the tear tracks on her face. She was clearly emotional, wiping it just make it seemed as though she was ashamed of that emotion. She took a third breath, and she turned.

She knew what she should expect. It was exactly what she had seen when she had begun holding the Mind Stone, when she had been running through a thousand different scenes. She guessed those other locations had Infinity Stones in them somewhere, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care at that particular moment. All she cared about was the eerie blue glow, and the alien it illuminated.

“At last,” Thanos said.

Skye strained her start her spine. She had to be brave. She knew what she was doing it for. She was doing it for Ultron, and she was doing of Earth. She was doing it for peace.

Peace in their time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Schedule of remaining chapters:  
> \- Epilogue - ASAP (but definately by Sunday the 20th of September at the very latest)
> 
> The second story will start on the 27th of September. Pinky swear.
> 
> In other news, having finally completely plotted out where the story is going and taking into account the size of 'chapter 20', I figure that I'm going to need to revise that up. Basically, there will be six fics roughly this length rather than three, with the following titles.  
>  1\. Sometimes I Hate The Life I Made  
>  2\. A Part Of Me I Can't Get Back  
>  3\. Before We Say Goodbye  
>  4\. Stir Up The Beast Inside  
>  5\. A Ghost With No Soul  
>  6\. Peace In Our Time
> 
> By my esitmate, with a chapter a week, I'll be writing this series until November of 2017 so I'm not going to expand it even more. Really.
> 
> For those who are interested, doing it this way makes a series much more symmetrical. In the first three fics, each story basically focuses on one part of the Marvel universe. This fic was the Age of Ultron, and the next one will obviously be focused on the Guardians of the Galaxy. And the third? Well, you just going to have to wait and see :)
> 
> The second half of the series is basically the disaster of Civil War and Infinity War overlaping, split into three arcs. It will be awesome, and means that the fourth fic will start in August of 2016 - after I've had a chance to see Civil War. If it makes my plans impossible, then I'l ignore it. If not, I'll be working that in to the plans, which are currently written with what I think will happen but are loose enough that I should be able to accomodate most twists.
> 
> That is not a dare, Marvel. Please don't go crazy (though, let's be honest: the crazy can be awesome).


	22. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a lot of people are disappointed, a few hearts are broken and no one realises that they're in the calm before the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, er, I thought I had already posted this. Whoops, my bad. You'd think that the comments would have gotten it through my thick skull but pparently not. Anyway, its finally up. I've also put the very past section as the prologue for the next fic so you can go over there ans subscribe if you don't want to subscribe to the series.

Novi Grad was pretty much unusable. Again. Well, at least they knew better than to accept Stark money to rebuild, as they had following the Second World War. They might end up as an English country village rather than anything Sokovian.

Still, no one was surprised. Yes, the bones of most of the buildings were standing but were unsound. After Ultron’s destruction, the city had lowered itself to the ground as gently as possible, but even so the impact was enough to weaken the foundations of most of the building that had not been wiped out by the Ultron bots or the alien invasion.

There was one bright spot. Luckily, unlike with the Battle of New York, the Avengers had managed to evacuate a decent part of the population before the fighting it actually started. It was a cold comfort that the death toll would be lower, even if one counted the Ultron bots.

Wanda had never considered that she might be able to leave. She had lived in or near the city her whole life, even the years after her parents’ death when she and her brother were basically street orphans. They had had no future, and no way out. The idea that they might have one still didn’t sit well with her.

The medical tent that had been pitched in what was left of the castle grounds was gigantic, and it was staffed with the very best that the world could provide. Had it just been the Ultron bots, no doubt the rest of the world would have been too busy yelling at the Avengers to provide help.

But everyone understood the threat that the Chitauri had posed. Human beings might not be able to get together much coordination when it came to solving the problems they had created, but they were actually not too bad at addressing the crises brought on by alien attacks.

The hand in hers squeezed slightly.

Wanda jumped out of the seat faster than she should have considering how long she had been sitting there. All her muscles were stiff, and they protested loudly at the sudden movement but she didn’t care. Pietro had moved. It hadn’t been in her mind, he had actually moved. She squeezed back.

“Don’t you have hearts to go break?” he mumbled low, his voice rusty with disuse. It had been two or three days that he had been unconscious, and while the highly educated doctors  brought over from England couldn’t find anything wrong with him, Wanda had reserved judgement until he was awake and talking and she could use her magic to probe what Loki had done to him.

“I was waiting for you to wake up so I could yell at you for almost breaking mine,” she said. There was no heat in the words, and any that had been there would have been drowned by the slightly watery tone. She finally felt herself shaking, all the tension that had been building the previous few days releasing.

She had been more terrified as she waited than during the fight. At least then she hadn’t had the time to consider all the way that things could go wrong, all the ways in which her brother might not recover. But he was awake and he seemed okay.

Suddenly, his entire demeanor changed. “Skye?” he asked, his face terrified.

Wanda had hoped to avoid the question, at least for some time. The SHIELD agent who seem to be in charge had said that Pietro had been with Quake when he had been shot, that she had reported it then gone back on what she had originally reported. At least, at that point, she had been working for them, though various parties seem to be disagreeing on that.

“When you are better,” she said hoping to put it off a little longer.

“What happened?” her brother demanded, his hand squeezing hers with a vice-like grip.

He was agitated. All the machinery they had him hooked up to began to shriek, and it was only a matter of time before the doctors arrived. They would no doubt try sedate him, or something along those lines. But Wanda knew her brother, and there would be no pacifying him until he knew what had happened to Quake.

“She sided with the aliens,” she said, trying to make it as quick as possible. While she was breaking the news as abruptly as possible to make sure that it got through her brother’s thick skull, they didn’t mean that she wanted him hurt. Quick, and hard. Better a sharp pain immediately than giving him the chance to try to fool himself.

The machines didn’t stop beeping. “No,” he said. “Not possible.”

Wanda tried to keep the pity from her eyes, but they both knew it was there. She didn’t need to protect her emotions, for her brother to be able to tell. “There was no mistaking it. She destroyed Vision, she fought side-by-side with the Chitauri. Ultron too, and Ward. There was another, as well. It was like a lineup of bad guys from those comics you used to like. All the supervillains in a row.”

A doctor entered. “You need to calm down,” he said to Pietro. He looked away from the machines and towards his patient. Clearly, he was quick on the uptake because he realised that her brother wasn’t going to calm down his own. He moved over to one of the machines, one that was hooked up to a bag. Drugs.

“No,” she said. The doctor ignored her. She grabbed his arm. “Postponing this will not make it go away.”

“He may be better healed–”

“He can take this.” she said. At some point, the doctor must have either been briefed on her powers or had realised that she would do nothing to hurt her brother. Reluctantly, he nodded and left.

“It’s not possible,” Pietro insisted. “She would never–”

“You do not know her well,” wWanda said.  “It is not a criticism, that is not to discount your judgement, Pietro, but you must understand that people who have known her for years did not see this coming. It is no shame to realise that you may have been fooled.”

“No! You didn’t see them, sister. She did not like Loki, she would never side with him.” Some stray thoughts seem to strike him. “The one she was with, with the metal arm, he was the one who shot me. He appeared to be with Loki. Perhaps they forced her–”

“Pietro,” Wanda said. “Wait until you see the video. There is no doubt that it was her choice. She had many opportunities, opportunities to go, but she never did.”

Her brother looked lost, and Wanda felt more anger at Quake for hurting him than she did for betraying their entire planet. Pietro had never liked anyone, at least not in the way that normal children, non-orphans, did. For all his smooth moves, he had never crushed on anyone, not at all, and certainly not as fast as he had with quake. And for Quake to go and do that to him, well. Suffice to say that the woman would not be pleased when Wanda got her hands on her.

“But we were meant to have dinner,” he said forlornly.

Yes. The moment Wanda got her hands on Quake, she was going to eviscerate the other woman.

 

Deep in the bowels of the helicarrier, Loki waited. He did not fear. Even with his brother on their side, he knew that the Midgardians would never do anything permanent. After all, they hadn’t. A grin stretched his face, and Loki hoped that it frightened those who were watching, as he had no doubt there were. He suspected that he would come to enjoy the idea of time travel, particularly when it worked in his favour.

The door to his cell opened. Loki did not react. He had had plenty of practice following his failed invasion of Midgard and his subsequent imprisonment in Asgard’s dungeons. He knew how to ignore captors. After all, none of them could hold a candle to Thanos’ dungeons. Not Asgard, not Migard.

Let them do their worst.

“Brother,” Thor growled. Loki hid his surprise; he would have thought that the Prince of Asgard would have stopped calling him that. Surely he would, after all Loki had done had pushed away.

Still he did not react. Loki kept his eyes on the ceiling, deliberately not looking at Thor, or his companions. It was for show; Thor knew well that Loki did not need to see something to know it was there, a trick he had perfected in childhood. He didn’t need to see the archer or the Black Widow to know that they accompanied his brother.

“Is there really any point in ignoring us?” the woman wondered. It was designed to lure him out, to make him defend his point. At least, that was what it seemed. Loki had learned better than to assume that he could figure out what her end game was. The woman was crafty.

“He’s just sulking,” the archer growled. He sounded almost as furious as Thor, and Loki supposed he had not been forgiven for what he had done with the scepter. Not that it mattered, or that he cared. The archer could complain all he wished; Loki had no more choice in the matter than he had. At least Loki had the years and the sense to not complain. There were others who had it far worse.

“Loki, I cannot help you if you will not talk,” Thor tried again.

Loki wondered how his brother intended to help him. He had attempted to invade Midgard, not once but twice. Or at least that was how would appear, and Loki did not believe his brother and his friends to be sufficiently canny enough to tell the difference between what appeared to be and what was reality. All the more so when what appeared to be made him appear the villain.

He was. Just not necessarily in the way that they believed.

“Seriously, what’s the point?” the Black Widow asked. “I was under the impression that the god of lies would do better to try and get out of here. Aren’t you also the god of tricks? Surely you can think of some way to weasel out of this.”

Loki sighed in annoyance. He could continue to ignore them, but really the woman had a point. There was nothing to be gained in saying silent, except to salvage his pride. And pride would not keep him alive, would not help him clear Thanos from his mind. The future him had said that the Lady Skye would, which gave him hope, but she was on the far side of the galaxy.

Ah. Yes, the compound they had injected him with had been slowing his mind. Just because he had certainty that all would be well did not mean that he could simply leave it be. He must act as he would otherwise, and he knew that the person who had the ability to save him was on the other side of the galaxy.

He could not simply wait out his brother and the other Avengers.

“Weasel out?” He asked, buying time.

“So you can speak,” the archer said with hostility.

Still, Loki did not turn to look at them. Instead, he stretched his magic out so he could feel his brother’s features, an illusion painting before his eyes that only he could see. Thor was frowning. “Loki, what did you do to Asgard?”

“Have you not had word?” Loki asked.

“There is no answer. Even Heimdall–” Thor cut himself off. Interesting. Apparently, Thor was learning discretion. Perhaps he had figured out that any information he gave Loki might well assist Loki in achieving his aim. Loki ignored the small clench of his heart at the fact that he had managed to teach his brother caution. It was something to be proud of, not something to mourn.

“I did not cause so much havoc as all that,” he said. “Nothing like your six hundredth name day,” he said. “Do not remember that? It was quite a day–”

“I remember. You still have not answered. What did you do?”

“Why, I retrieved some objects, of course.”

The Black Widow looked at him sharply. “Objects? The Tesseract and what else?”

Finally, Loki rolled himself easily into a sitting position, facing his brother and his brothers allies. “Do you think I will so easily give up such information?”

The Black Widow nodded. “You’re answering our questions when you do not have to do. Yes, you’ll answer. You believe it will help you.”

Loki inclined his head in acknowledgment of the good point. It was good to know that there was someone with some common sense around to keep his brother in line. “The Infinity Gauntlet,” he said.

The pain was instantaneous, and completely blinding. Loki gritted his teeth, doing his best to keep his pain from the captors. There was nothing that they could do, and he did not want them to know. But of course he could not keep it from Thor, who had a habit of being annoyingly observant exactly when Loki did not want him to be.

“Loki? Are you well?” For a moment, Thor’s anger was displaced. There was only concern there.

“I am well,” Loki lied with all the expertise he had gathered in over a millennium. He lied like no one else had ever lied before. And it was a masterful performance, and Thor looked appease for a moment.

“He’s lying,” the Black Widow said. “He’s in pain.”

Loki was really beginning to be impressed with the woman. He would be even more so if she won’t constantly getting in the way of his plans.

“I most certainly am not,” he said, filling his voice with outrage. “If you’re an Asgardian I would challenge you to a duel of honour for such a slight.”

But he had gone too far. Thor knew well that he would never begin a duel with an Asgardian over something as unimportant as accusing him of lying, even when they were wrong. Asguardians knew him too well, and he had spent enough time there that he would never have had a moment’s peace. “Loki? Come, brother, I will not continue to question you if you are not well.”

“Are, there is a motivation indeed to be in pain,” Loki said, trying to fill his face with humour. Unfortunately, he had more success previously, when he had been keeping his face relatively blank. Even he could feel that the humour fell short, the pain etching into his forehead.

“What is the matter, Loki?” Thor pressed, his voice becoming increasingly alarmed. They both knew exactly how serious it must be to overcome Loki’s natural penchant for keeping any weakness to himself.

“Thor, what colour are Loki’s eyes?” the archer asked suddenly. Loki hid a grimace.

“Blue, of course,” his brother said, completely confused. “Can you not see?”

“But are they that shade of blue?”

It took for a second, but the moment Thor realised what his ally was trying to hint at, his head whipped back around and he stepped much further into the cell. His right hand slammed down onto Loki shoulder, holding him place. His left hand grabbed Loki’s chin and jerked his face up so that he could look directly into his brother’s eyes.

Loki had never seen Thor’s heart break so thoroughly as it did then.

“You are under you have been under the influence of the Stone for so long?” Thor asked. Loki could see his brother beginning to spin romantic tales of his suffering. Loki could feel his back go up, like a angry cat. It was true that he did not have all the control over his actions that he wished, but he did not appreciate having that thrown in his face.

“It is true, I could not cleave my purpose from Thanos’. But, brother, do not mistake that for a lack of responsibility over what has occurred. All that occurred, occurred because I chose it to. It does not matter what influence the Stone has over me, for I chose the manner in which it was expressed.”

"You do not know your own mind–"

"I do," Loki said emphatically. The spark of mischief burned within him. It was something he had not felt for some time, though he wished he had. He almost felt like his old self again. It was a perfect solution, a way to both taunt Thor and to get the conversation away from subjects Loki will did not wish to talk about. "Should you not be rejoicing?"

The archer snorted in derision, the sound mean and undiplomatic. "You want us to celebrate another alien invasion?"

Loki smiled at him, fully aware that it would aggravate the man. "But it will not occur again. Should you not be celebrating the Lady Skye's victory?"

Thor tensed. "She took the Mind Stone to Thanos."

Loki expected that, of course. "Yes, it was kind of her indeed. Thanos will have no further reason to return to this planet, and part of the Lady Skye's deal to turn herself over to Thanos was that the Mad Titan himself would provide the security for Midguard."

Romanoff tensed. "What you mean, deal?"

"Why, the very reason Thanos bothered to attack this planet again. The Lady Skye. No doubt she did not intend to reveal the extent of her powers, may not have even know them herself, when she first brushed against the Mind Stone. But the Tesseract recieved her signal, and Thanos would burn the Nine Realms to obtain one such as her, one who has the power to detect the Infinity Stones."

The three Avengers stared at him, dumbfounded. It was not a good look on anyone, but it was especially not a good look on any of them. Loki wondered how he could possibly have lost to them.

"Quake managed to defend the planet?" the archer asked. He sounded shaken.

"Yes," Loki said, as though he was bored. "Surely you know that one such as her would never willingly go to Thanos. Now he has her, he will never let her go. Besides, did you not see that she was fighting against the Chitauri before she and I did our negotiation?"

"Are you lying, Loki?" Thor asked. Loki barely managed to refrain from rolling his eyes.

"Yes, Thor. I am lying. Was that what you wanted to hear?" he snapped. The pounding was beginning to make itself felt behind his eyes. The hook in his mind jerked, telling him you needed to return to Thanos. But he could not, so all Loki could do was ignore it and hope that it did not worsen over much.

The Avengers looked at each other. The archer spoke.

"Tony is not going to want to hear this."

 

Pepper sniffed. Rhodey handed her another tissue. That was the last one for the packet, which meant they would have to go and buy another dozen. Or, since they were at the Avengers Tower, they would have to send one of the underlings to go by another. He leaned back, looking over at Pepper's PA, who was sitting at her desk and trying to appear as though she wasn't eavesdropping shamelessly.

He pointed at the packet of tissues. She nodded, leaving her desk and walking out of sight. Rhodey turned back to Pepper.

"Tony doesn't believe that she tried to save the world."

Pepper scowled. Some of the effect was ruined by the fact that her nose was swelling up, and she could barely see through her eyes reddening-eyes. "Did. She didn't try, she did the world."

"She did save the world," Rhodey agreed. Knowing how to survive was a key attribute in any kind of military. He was not stupid.

"Please tell me Tony isn't somewhere I'm going to run into him in the next, say, week."

"They're setting up a new Avengers facility, at an undisclosed location that I am not meant to tell you about. Tony is probably not going to continue his involvement, but he's there to set up. It is his money after all."

"Did they ask you to join?" Pepper asked, astute as ever.

The look on his face must be answer enough.

 

“No. Absolutely not.” Peter folded his arms and glared at Gamora. “And since when do you do what the Nova Corps wants?”

“The fate of the Galaxy is important enough to listen to those…” The former assassin cut herself off, clearly unable to find a word that sufficiently encompassed her feelings for the Nova Corps.

Rocket offered a word which would have caused serious offense in polite society - none of the other Guardians so much as twitched - but meant something along the lines of ‘goody-goody two shoes’, only far cruder than any child’s insult could manage.

“I’m not going after another Infinity Stone,” Peter repeated. “Especially not after that fiasco on Spartax.”

“Eh, you Terrans look like you’re from Spartax,” Rocket shrugged. “Don’t remember you sayin’ it didn’t make sense.”

In the year since the Guardians of the Galaxy had formed, Peter had gained a whole new sympathy for any law enforcement that had to deal with them. Hell, most of the time Peter didn’t want to deal with them, and he was them.

“I wasn’t talking about my not-Dad, I meant the Novas starting a bar fight that destroyed a third of the city and nearly sparked a civil war.” Peter turned his glare on Drax, who was wise enough to keep quiet given what he had been up to at the time. Peter really should have known better than to bond with anyone whose nickname was ‘the Destroyer’.

“So we avoid Spartax. That place was a dump anyway.”

Peter gave in and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It certainly was once you were done with it,” he muttered under his breath. He raised his voice. “I don’t care about Spartax-”

“Then why did you bring it up?”

Peter ignored Gamora’s interruption. “-I care about the fact that the Nova Corps’ information can be spotty, and the best case scenario is there turns out to be an Infinity Stone. Which, dude, I am not doing that again.”

“Come on,” Rocket wheedled.

“Nova has said she will pay market value,” Gamora said with a firm nod. She didn’t need to add that it was the best way to ensure that the second stone didn’t make its way back to Thanos.

“We have been on this ship for such a time that I would prefer the Kiln,” Drax said. He wasn’t joking. Drax never joked.

Even Groot, still barely waist height but at least toddling around on his own, smiled. Peter knew he was beaten but he wasn’t going to give up without a fight. “Its my ship.”

Rocket waved dismissively. “Please. We installed an override the first week. Consider your ship comandeered.”

Peter spluttered. “You can’t do that!”

Gamora grinned at him. “What was that, Ravager? I could not hear you over the sound of your hypocrisy.”

Rocket’s cackle nearly drowned Drax’s enquiry as to what sound, he had heard no sound. “She’s got you there, humie.”

Peter stormed out of the cockpit. He couldn’t out fight them, but he wasn’t giving up that easily. He had a really bad feeling, beyond the fact that another Infinity Stone had shown up. Something was going on, Peter could feel it in the starways.

It was a measure of how much time he spent with Drax that he automatically muttered “metaphor” under his breath.

 

Stephen felt as though he had seen a ghost.

Oh, he had known… well, he had procured the photo for Loki. He had known it was her, and recognised her the moment her figure had started running towards him. Skye. What had happened there, he wasn’t entirely certain, and Stephen had decades of magical training behind him. He had suspicions, but nothing more.

He still hadn’t let go of the jewelled brooch holding his cape together.

He forced his fingers open. His hand dropped to his side, and he gnashed his teeth. He wished he could be rid of the thing, even though it had been what had started him down the path of magic it was that had become his life. He would have been nothing without it, but that was a long time ago. Now, the brooch was nothing but a ball and chain.

He he almost couldn’t believe that Loki had recognised it. The time travelling Asgardian had simply popped into his workshop, taking Stephen by surprise. It had been humbling that he had barely held his own against the Asgardian, with all the benefit of the strength of the brooch. Clearly,  the term God was not misapplied.

It had been a risk to ally himself with someone who was called a god of lies, the original trickster. But Loki had spoken of an evil that couldn’t be named, something worse even than all the nameless horrors that Stephen kept at bay, his penance to the human race.

And then Loki had gone after her.

He could always call the Asgardian, though. He dug out his phone – brick cell, because he would ever be an old man trapped in young man’s body – and attempted to call his sort-of ally. The phone rang, and it rang. Stephen ground his teeth. Impatience had ever been his second greatest flaw, surpassed only by his ego, so he knew that it couldn’t have been as long as it felt.

The call cut off, with a recorded message that the person he was trying to read was not available. Stephen took a deep breath. At no point in the short alliance had Loki ever not picked up the phone. Something was wrong; he had been the one who had been so desperate for Stephen’s help.

His worry was cut off by a pounding in his door.

Stephen’s entire body snapped to attention, like a dog had spotted in a rabbit. He doubted that Loki would go to the front door, no matter what had happened. The Asgardian had enough power that he could appear anywhere, and with the time travel he could do, possibly anywhen. He would not go to the door.

Still, Stephen rushed. He yanked open the door, not sure who he thought he might find. It certainly wasn’t her.

“Hello Stephen,” Jiaying said.

 

Skye didn't know whether it was reassuring terrifying to see that the visions she had gotten when she had first grabbed the Mind Stone were actually what Thanos is Dominion looked like. It was just as barren, just as alien, as she had seen it to be.

But she didn't care about that. What she cared about was the alien warlord sitting on his throne of stone.

"You wanted me. I'm here," she said, even though she knew that it was unlikely he would understand her.

She was right. His mouth pulled into what might've been a grin, but she didn't presume to know what his species, whatever it was, meant with their facial expressions. He said something, the sounds harsh to Skye's ears. Next to her and a bit behind to her left, Ward shifted slightly. At her right, the Winter Soldier was completely still.

"I can translate," Loki said. She didn't turn to him, but thought that she could hear some small hint of compassion there. It was a bit late for that; after all, he was the one who had been there to represent Thanos during the negotiations.

"Translate this: I am only here as long as he holds up his end of the bargain."

Loki spoke, repeating her words. For a moment, Skye thought that he was mocking her. But then Thanos nodded. Ah, there must be some kind of magic to his words, that meant that anyone who heard it could understand. Jemma would find that fascinating- She cut off that thought. Skye would probably never see her or the others again. She wasn’t going to torture herself by thinking of that she would never have.

She resolved to look more closely at his mouth the next time he spoke, see if the movement corresponded with the sounds she thought she heard. It was a pitiful distraction, and she didn’t event fool herself.

Thanos replied. Loki translated. "He wishes to know what he will call you," he said.

Skye held back a swallow. She would not appear weak in front of someone who had tried to invade the Earth. Nor would you give him her real name, just in case just in case- What, she had no idea. But nor would she give him permission to call the Quake. That was another person, someone who had been lying to her brother.

Without intending to, the heel of Skye’s palm pressed into the USB in her pocket. It bit into her skin, reassuring her that it was still there. That he was still there. That she had something left from her home, and perhaps a reason to go back.

But she still needed another name.

She made a decision. "Nemesis. He can call me Nemesis."

Skye would keep up her end of the bargain. For awhile. But, someday, she would make it back to Earth. Not for her, but for Ultron. He deserved a chance at happiness.

It would not be immediately. She would bide her time and do as she was told. Every minute that she stayed would be another minute that the Earth was protected. The cost was only doing the right thing, helping other people. It was a price she would pay.

So she would betray her principles, take orders from a warlord. She would let go of the part of her that used to think that superheroes - her Dad aside - were the coolest thing ever. She wasn’t pretending anymore; she wasn’t a mole. She was really a villain.

But she she would never forget that, by backing her into a corner with his invasion, Thanos had made his greatest enemy.

His Nemesis.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end... of part 1.


End file.
